Research Methods

There is a wide range of Psychological research methods used in our every day life. These methods are varied by the way that the information is processed, viewed, extracted, and presented. Psychological research effects our lives in many different ways; from how parents discipline their children, to how our government is run; information accumulated from this research is very important in the development of our society.

Hindsight Bias

The tendency to believe, after learning the outcome, that you knew it all along

Overconfidence

We tend to think we know more than we do

The Barnum Effect

The tendency for people to accept general or vague characterizations of themselves and take them to be accurate

TYPES OF RESEARCH:

Applied research

• Clear practical applications
• you can use it

Basic Research

• Explores questions that you may be curious about, but not intended to be used immediately

Experimental research

• Explores cause and effect
• Operational Definitions: 
How will the variables  be measured in " Real Life " terms?
Explaining what we mean in our hypothesis

in an experimental study, you may have components such as

• Experimental Groups - Group in which the treatment of an experiment is exposed to its participants

• Control Groups- Group used as comparison for evaluation the effect of the treatment

• Dependent Variables-  Aspect that is being measured in an experiment

• Independent Variable- Whatever is being studied can be manipulated
• Hypothesis- Expresses a relationship between two variable

Single Blind Study

• Subjects are unaware if assigned to experimental or control group

Double Blind Study

• Neither subjects, nor experimenters know which group is controlled or experimental

Survey

• An experimental method of research in which questions are asked to a group of subjects and in which the researcher has to take careful measures to make sure that the information is not skewed or biased.

Naturalistic observation

• Researchers observe subject in their natural habitat

Cross sectional Study

• A cross section of a population is tested

Longitudinal study

• A group of subjects is studied over a long period of time

Case study

• An in-depth analysis of a single person

Statistically speaking....

Descriptive Statistics

• Describes results of research

Inferential statistics

• Used to make an inference or draw conclusion beyond the raw data

Central Tendency

Where does the center of the data tend to be?

Mode

The most frequently occurring score in a distribution

Mean

The average of scores

Median

Middle score

Range

The difference between the highest and lowest scores

Standard Deviation

How much the scores vary around the mean

• High Deviation: Data is spread out
• Low Deviation: Data is clustered