PSY 280: Research in Psychopathology

Nomothetic

General understanding of psychopathology

Idiographic

Individualistic understanding of psychopathology

Scientific Method

Collecting and evaluating information through careful observations

Hypotheses

Hunches or predictions that certain variables are related in certain ways

Case Study

Detailed description of a person’s life and psychological problems.

How are case studies helpful?

New ideas about behavior

Tentative support for a theory

Show value of new therapeutic techniques

Opportunity to study unusual problems

Limitations of case studies?

Biased observers

Subjective evidence

Low internal accuracy/internal validity

Little basis for generalization

Low external validity

Internal validity

The accuracy with which a study can pinpoint one factor as the cause of a phenomenon.

External validity

The degree to which the results of a study may be generalized beyond that study.

Correlational Method

A research procedure used to determine how much events or characteristics vary along with each other.

Merits of correlational method?

Higher external validity

Limitations of correlational method?

Lower internal validity

Correlation does not equal…

causation

experimental method

research procedure in which a variable is manipulated and the manipulation’s effect on another variable is observed

Independent variable

Variable that is manipulated in an experiment

Dependent variable

Variable that is measured in an experiment

Confounds

a variable other than the independent variable that can also affect the dependent variable.

Control group

Group of subjects not exposed to the independent variable

Statistical significance

Finding is unlikely to have occurred by chance (p<0.5)

Masked design/blind design

Participants don’t know what group they’re in

Matched design

A research design that matches the experimental participants with control participants who are similar on key characteristics.

Natural experiments

An experiment in which nature, rather than an experimenter, manipulates an independent variable.

Longitudinal studies

A study that observes the same participants on many occasions over a long period of time.

Epidemiological study

How often a particular psychological disorder occurs in a certain population

Incidence

The number of NEW cases of a disorder occurring in a population over a specific period of time.

Prevelance

The TOTAL number of cases of a disorder occurring in a population over a specific period of time.

Qualitative methods

Natural and unfiltered research methods intended to seek out each participant’s direct perspective — gathering information that is offered in the participant’s own words. (i.e. interviews)

Mixed-methods research

A research tradition that combines, or mixes, both quantitative and qualitative approaches within the same research project.

Institutional Review Board (IRB)

An ethics committee in a research facility that is empowered to protect the rights and safety of human research participants.