Research Methods and False Recall

Types of Research

Basic Research

  • Ex. Measuring how happy someone is due to another thing

    • False Recall and Recognition

      • Given a list of adjectives, a lot of people will recall something similar, but not from the list

/

Applied Research

  • Ex. Finding ways to increase happiness

    • Reconstructive Memory

      • Can create memories that didn’t actually happen

Laboratory Research

  • Schachter and Singer Theory

    • Emotion is determined by two factors: physiological arousal and cognitive labeling

Field Research

  • Misattribution of Arousal

    • Mistaken inferences are made about the source of arousal

Quantitative Research

  • How people respond to things like on a scale one 1-10

Qualitative Research

  • Responses to open ended questions

Develop a Research Question

  1. From Serendipity or Observation

(Taking chance events and observing them.)

Serendipity is the act of finding something valuable when you weren’t actually looking for. The discovery is penicillin comes from an accidental discovery of mold being killed on a petri dish.

Observation involves watching behavior in the natural world than questioning why it happened. The bystander effect comes from the tragic death of Kitty Genovese where many people observed the event but did not intervene. They used that event to then develop a research question and learn how group size effects speed to react in emergencies.

  1. From Theory

A theory is a set of logically consistent statement

Theories are data driven

Theories can be falsified

Theories are parsimonious

  • As simple as possible

Theories are not guesses

3. From Other Research (Replication and Extension.)

What Makes a Good Research Idea

  • Why might the question be important?

  • What are the likely outcomes?

  • Will science be advanced by knowing the answer?

  • Would anyone be interested?

  • Are you interested in it?

Reviewing Literature

Peer-reviewed journals

  • Most oftend empirical studies

  • Most regirous

  • Primary and Secondary Sources

Book Chapter

  • Most often review of other studies

  • Less rigorus

University-based (or federal) websites

  • Preliiminary data

  • Less rigorous

General Websites

  • Least rigorous

  • Do not use as a true refrence