Introduction

definition

• it is a science. Like bio and chem. It’s a scientific study of how we feel, think and behave, it is a scientific study of mental processes and behavioural processes

Scope

• the scope of psychology is huge, every single aspect of human life is relevant to psychologist. Everything you could think about is relevant to psychologist and involves psychological processes

• Social media, military, justice system, relationships, families, medicine, business

• “The connection between the mind and body are highly significant”

  • if u cut ur hand in the middle of exams, its going to take longer compared to if u cut ur hand while summer break with no worries of exams and ur relaxing, because of stress. Stress is a big factor in the healing of our body.

A. Why do we need science?

• Why can’t we rely on intuition?

  • sometimes we need to, but however, when it comes to understanding the natural word an understanding its truth, it can be be highly misleading.

    • Relying on our intuition people thought the earth was flat, that the sun revolves around the earth But science discovered that the earth wasn’t flat.

• Why cant we rely on common sense?

  • Because common sense is not so common

  • What’s common sense for one person will not be common sense for another

  • Common sense develops from experiences and is a result of having learnt something (either firsthand or secondhand)

    • the stove is hot - we either had to touch a stove to know it’s hot or seen someone else get really hurt by touching a hot stove.

  • Common sense does not generate new knowledge or information

• We tend to be over confident

  • when it comes to know how accurate our knowledge is We tend to be highly confident about its accuracy.

  • Research is super clear, while we are much more confident than accurate

    • Ken Olson, President of Digital equipment company 1977 - “there is no reason for anyone to have a computer in their home”

    • Lord kelvin, mathematician/ physicist 1895 - “ heavier than air flying machines are impossible” ( airplanes)

    • Lee deforest, inventor 1957 - “ Man will never reach the moon regardless of all future scientific adventures”

B. How do we know?

this is a philosophical question, hotly debated throughout the ages

• Empiricism

  • to use systematic observation, senses and experiences

• Rationalism

  • “ senses cannot be trusted”, senses are deceiving and very limited in their abilities to discover the natural world

  • Use pure reason, pure logic, pure critical thinking

• Kant

  • believed in both, he believed we needed experience and observations but we also need pure reason.

C. Scientific method

• any Field of study that follows the scientific method, is a Science

• The 6 steps of scientific method

  1. Identify

  2. Gather information

  3. Develop a hypothesis

  4. Design and conduct experiments ( study)

  5. Analyze the data and draw conclusion

  6. Restart process

• Hypothesis testing

  • tentative statement, Prediction, about the relationship between 2 variables.

  • Is not fact or truth, just a prediction that is doing to be tested.

    • people look like their dogs

• Rules

  • Must be falsifiable, if not then it’s not scientific - we should be able to put it to test, should be able to prove false, only takes 1 observation.

    • all lions are black t or f - its falsifiable

    • No human on the plant has blue skin - its falsifiable

    • Ghosts exist- we can not falsifiable

• Replication

  • we must replicate our studies

  • We must redo them, with different sets of subjects, and the results are the same, our confidence in our findings will grow.

• Evolution

  • what we know today, may change tomorrow

  • Our findings are gonna be more rewinded

  • Science is self correcting

  II. Types of research studies (3)

Descriptive research

A1. Purpose : what is the purpose

• Allows us to obverse and describe

  • allows us to ask what, when and how, but theirs one type of question we cant get to- whY

A.2 case study

• definition

  • researcher study 1 single person or a small group of people, and study them in dept, its In-depth investigation,

  • Their going to attempt to gather information that’s relevant

    • Hayley, 14- rare genetic disease,

• Advantages

  • allows us to keep a record of rare cases that can be lost other wise

  • They are a excellent first step

  • The most in-depth investigation ever

  • They allow capture of human nature

• Disadvantages

  • researcher bias - they have their own theories, beliefs, they become the filter it which the research isn’t correct, have multiple observations and keep records

  • Your can not generalize to the rest of the population as the research is based on 1 person or a small group

A3. Surveys

Definition

• they ask a large group of people to ask question to answer that are of interest

• In Canada and USA - we have been survey about everything and nothing

• It’s impossible to interview every single person- they extract a sample of the population and then interview them. About 1500

• If the results are to be considered to be scientific, the sample chosen must be representative

  • the characteristics of the sample should closely the mirror the population

  • The whole point of the sample is so we can generalize the whole population.

• How to do u get a representative sample?

  • Random sampling

    1. Every single in the population of interest, has a equal chance of being included in the survey

    2. Chance and only chance and nothing else will determine who’s in the survey.

  • Simple random sample

    • use random sampling to extract a sample of people

  • Stratified random sample

• Advantages

  • cheap

  • Easy to administer

  • Includes a large number of people, includ people that are usually not included

  • Sometimes its the only way to know

• Disvantages

  • truth - some people with lie

  • Easily affected by how you word your question

Here is some more useful information:

As I have mentioned in the lecture, just because the researchers ask a question, it does not mean they are going to get the correct, accurate, or honest answer. Response bias can be a major problem in survey research. It is a general term that refers to a number of factors that could lead subjects to answer inaccurately. Here are a couple of examples:

Acquiescence bias: tendency for a subject to agree with whatever the researcher is asking.

No variety in the answers. Agree or yes, dominates their answers regardless of what the question is about.

Social desirability bias: as mentioned in the lecture, sometimes subjects may not give an honest answer because they want to be perceived in a positive light. They want to be liked.

As a result, they provide the politically correct and socially desirable answer and they hide their true opinion, attitude and behaviours. For example, they may be prejudiced against immigrants but in the survey they may indicate that they support policies aiming at increasing the number of immigrants accepted in the country.

Your book mentions a couple of other biases:

Volunteer bias: that would be a problem if researchers do not use random sampling and rely instead on volunteers to answer their surveys. These volunteers may not be

rompling and

representative of the population of interest. The mere fact that they are volunteering while others are refraining to do so is a hint to a potential difference.

Illusory superiority (part of what is known as the self-serving bias) is the tendency for most people to perceive themselves as better than average. Most people tend to perceive themselves as sexier, smarter, kinder etc., than average. Mathematically, this is total nonsense. How could MOST be better than the average??? :)

Are you better than average? :)

A.4 naturalistic observation

• Definition

  • the researcher goes into the real world and conduct the research in the real word

  • The forest, school or zoo

  • Rule

    • the researchers must not interfere, their there just to observe

• Advantages

  • it doesn’t get more real than this

  • Sometimes- this is the only way to study something

  • Discover - something we would have never discovered otherwise

    • Chipms use tools and have a culture

    • Elephants what are pregnant, would eat a special plant that no other elephant would eat because it induces labor - they are self medicating.

    • Animals use plants to self medicate - zoopharmacognosy

• Disadvantages

  • researcher bias - what they want to see or hear affecting the results

  • Presence - they can’t interfere, but their presence can interfere or influence a different result

    • humans and animals, when they notice someone is seeing them they change behaviour.

    • Researchers have to blend in to have a correct result.

B. Correlational research

• purpose

  • it allows us to observe , describe and make predictions

  • See if theirs a link or relationship between 2 variables

  • 3 major questions

    1. do they convary - if 1 variables change does the other one also change?

    2. In what direction

       • positive correlation- lets us know that there is a correlation, variables change in the same direction. Up or down

       • Negative correlation- 2 variables change opposite direction, as 1 goes up the other goes down

    3. To what extent to they convary - how strong is this relationship

  • We turn to correlation coefficient: r ( -1 0 +1) - this is how we answer these questions

    • (-) means negative correlation

    • (+) means positive correlation

    • (0) means no relationship

      • the closer r is to 0- the weaker the relationship is

      • The closer r is 1, regardless of (-/+) - the stronger the relationship is

      • Check the absolute value for the strength

    • Graphs

      • perfect correlation- goes up

      • Perfect negative- goes down

      • No correlation- is a scattered graph. \

Advantages

• excellent 1st step

• The only option

• Describe and make predicts - information about 1 is only needed.

• Take precautions

Disadvantages

• can not infer causality

lec 2

C. Experimental research

Introduction

• the only type of research that allows to draw conclusions about cause and effect relationships

Can be done

• lab

• Field experiment

  • the researcher is going to infer, and go out in the real world for research.

  • Randomly assign a group of people to a studying method and other group to another studying method

• Why

  • 2 main reasons

    1. An experiment Is going to manipulate The independent variable their studying ( see later)

    2. The research is going to control all other independent variables that could infer with their result ( see later)

• Independent variable

  • a variable that is going to affect another variable, it’s going to cause a cause, the variable the research is going either control or manipulate.

• Dependant variable

  • the variable that’s is going tot be affected by another variable, that’s going to be changed, that the research is going to measure

    • yoga lowers stress levels- yoga is independent variable, stress levels is dependant variable

C.2 manipulate the independent variable

Means

• the researcher is going to create 2 levels of independent variable of interest

  • milk increases bone density - both group are elderly women

    • 1 group - assigned to drink milk- their exposed to independent variable - experimental group

    • 2 group - not to drink milk - the control group

      • At the end of the study, we are going to compare bone density of both groups, to see if drinking milk made a difference

C.3 control all other independent variables

Must

• not studying, but could infer with his results, the control must happened

Known and unknown independent variables

• confounding variables

Why

• if they don’t control, they will not know for sure that changed in the dv, the study would have no value. We must control

Known IVs

• Milk increases bone density - pills, weights, other dairy products

Unknown I.vs

• random assignment

  • every single person in the study, it has a equal chance of being apart of either of controlled or experimental

  • Chance and only chance, and nothing is determine who ends up in either group, we are trying to equalize both groups

Placebo effect

• a substance in earth- A substance that has no therapeutic value

• When we are given A placebo, but we do not know it’s a placebo Rather, we believe it’s an effective treatment, and based on that belief and that belief only , we end up feeling way better.

• A scientifically documented phenomenon.