1. 1. Introduction to ResearchIntroduction to Research

What are the goals of descriptive, correlational, and experimental research? What are the advantages and disadvantages of each research approach?

What benefits are there to be gained from learning how to evaluate research, conduct it, and think critically about it?

What are the goals of basic research and of applied research, and how do the two types of goals relate to each other?

What is the difference between a fact and a value, and how do a scientist’s values influence his or her research?

What is the scientific method and why do scientists use it?

What are the limitations of “everyday science” and intuition for understanding behavior?

What is behavioral research, and why it is conducted?

Behavioral Research:

The goal of behavioral research is to discover, among other things,how people perceive their world, how they think and feel, how they change over time, how they make decisions, and how they interact with others.

The statement made by behavioral researchers are empirical,which means that they are based on systematic collection andanalysis of data, where data are information collected throughformal observation or measurement.

Why is behavioral research important?

Increase our understanding of behavior.

e.g. Autism

e.g. Racism, Sexism, Ethnocentrism

Provide important information that complements other scientific approaches.

e.g. social aspects of death as opposed to medical research

• Provide methods for improving the quality of our lives.

Demonstrate the full range of capacities humans possess

How do we understand our everyday behavior?

Relying on our intuition.

Example. Nisbett & Wilson (1977)

We can not get accurate information by simply asking people why they do what they do.

Often provide valuableInsights about humanbehaviors.

But do we really understandthe reason of our behavior?

Why is it problematic?

1. We easily use intuition to understand human behaviors(or concepts).

• If they seem so natural to us, we take them for granted .

4. If they are taken for granted, we are not aware why the behavior is being performed.

5. Therefore, we can’t assess the reason for the behavior which is what we are really trying to understand.

• Intuition makes the behavior seem natural

Scientific Methods

What is the scientific methods?

Being Objective

1. Free from the personal bias

2. Free from the investigator’s emotions

3. Replicable by others (scientists)

4. Open to other’s (scientists)’s scrutiny.

Values

Facts

Personal statements such as “abortion should not be permittedin this country”, “Good people will go to heaven when they die”.

Objective statements determined to be accurate through empirical study such as “there were over 20,000 homicides in the United states”.

Scientific Methods

Observing everyday behavior carefully.

Constructing hypotheses or comprehensive theories .

Drawing inferences from the observation.

Choosing the best methods to prove your predictions.

Analyzing the collected data and objectively interpretthe data.

Replicating the findings to generalize the findings.

Basic ResearchIt investigates fundamental questions about behavior without particular reason to study except to acquire a better knowledge of how these processes occur.

Applied Research

It provides underlying principles that can be used to solveSpecific problems.

It gives ideas for the kind of topics that basic research can study.

e.g. memory for pictures, nerve impulse.

It investigates issues that have implications for everyday life and provide solutions to everyday problems.

e.g. what types of psychotherapy are most effective in reducing depression.

•Evaluating Research Reports

•Conducting Research

The importance of Studying Research Methods

•Thinking Critically about Research

Behavioral Research

DescriptiveResearch

CorrelationalResearch

ExperimentalResearch

Survey &Interview

NaturalisticObservation

Converging Operations

Research Methods Strengths Drawbacks

Descriptive

Research

Snapshot

of thoughts,

feelings

or behaviors

Allows capturing the complexities of everyday behavior.

It provides a relatively detailed picture of what is occurred at a given time.

Limited to providing static

picture.

Cannot answer how a certain

behavior develops, what impact the behavior has, and why the behaviors was performed.

Correlational

Research

Systematic

Relationships

among variables

Pearson r

correlation

coefficient

Allows testing of expected

Relationships between and among variables and making of predictions.

Cannot be used to identify causal relationships among the variables.

Remains a possibility that some other variable caused the observed variable to be correlated.

Experimental

Research

Causal

relationships

of more than two variables

ANOVA

MANOVA

It allows drawing of conclu-sion about the causal relationships among variable.

Cannot experimentally manipulate many important

Variables.

Let’s select appropriate methods for your research!

1. Availability of participants2. Availability of researchers3. Availability of equipment4. Availability of space5. Time constraint

Try to use more than one technique.

Nisbett & Cohen, (1996). Culture of Honor

Converging Operation