Developing Ideas: Beginning the Research Process

Coming Up with Ideas

• Social psych studies begin with questions

• Ideas can come from reading about research that has already been done

• Hypothesis: An explicit, testable prediction about the conditions under which an event will occur

• Theory: An organized set of principles used to explain observed phenomena

  • Goal is to explain findings, articulate connections between the variables, and predict our social worlds

• Basic Research: Seeks to increase our understanding of human behavior. often designed to test a specific hypothesis from a specific theory

• Applied Research: Focuses on making applications to the world and contributing to the solution of social problems

Refining Ideas

• Operational Definition: The specific procedures for manipulating / measuring a conceptual variable

• Construct Validity: The extent to which

  • The manipulations in an experiment manipulate the variables they’re supposed to

  • The measures used in a study measure the variables they’re supposed to

• Measuring Variables using self-reports, observations, and tech

  • Self-Reports: Participants disclose their thoughts, feelings, desires, and actions

    • The desire to look good to ourselves and others can influence how we respond

    • Bogus Pipeline Technique: Participants are led to believe that their responses will be verified by an infallible lie detector

    • Affected by the way questions are asked (wording, context)

  • Interrater Reliability: Level of agreement among multiple observers of the same behavior

  • Technology

    • Measure cognitive and physiological responses (reaction time, heart rate, levels of hormones, sexual arousal, eye-tracking)

    • Brain imaging tech

Testing Ideas

• Descriptive Research: Record how frequently or how typically people think, feel, or behave in particular ways

  • Observational studies

  • Archival Studies: Examining existing records of past events and behaviors

  • Surveys

• Correlational Research: Measures the relationship between variables

  • Correlation Coefficient: A statistical measure of the strength and direction of the association between two variables

  • Correlation is not causation

• Experiment: Form of research that can demonstrate causal relationships

  • Random Assignment: Participants are not assigned to a group based on their characteristics

  • Random Sampling: Selecting participants for a study in a way that everyone in a population has an equal chance

  • Lab Research: Environment is controlled and participants are carefully studied

  • Field Research: Conducted in real-world settings outside the lab

  • Independent Variable: A variable whose variation doesn’t depend on that of another. The manipulated variable in an experiment

  • Dependent Variable: A variable whose variation depends on that of another. In an experiment, it is measured to see if it’s affected

  • Subject Variables: Characterize preexisting differences among the participants in a study

  • Internal Validity: When an experiment is properly conducted

  • Confound: A factor other than the independent variable that has an effect on the dependent variable

  • Experimenter Expectancy Effects: The effects produced when an experimenter’s expectations about the results of an experiment affect his or her behavior toward a participant and thereby influence the participant’s responses.

  • External Validity: The extent to which the results obtained under one set of circumstances would also occur in a different set of circumstances

  • Mundane Realism: Extent to which the research setting resembles the real-world setting

  • Experimental Realism: Degree to which the experimental setting and procedures are real and involving to the participant

  • Deception: Providing participants with false info

    • Confederates: People working for the experimenter who pretend they’re part of the experiment

Interpreting the Meaning of the Results Obtained

• Meta-Analysis: Combining results across studies

• Informed Consent: An individual’s deliberate, voluntary decision to participate in research

• Debriefing: Researchers fully inform their participants about the nature of the research at the end of the experiment