Issues & Debates

• Application to Everyday Life

  -evaluate usefulness, positive or negetive

  -extent is debating how findings can be used/not used in everyday life
• Ecological Validity


  extent setting conducted relevant to everyday life (natural)
• Mundane Realism


  task given does not happen in everyday life
• Ethics

  -Brit psychological study; strict guidelines on what can/cannot be done to human participants; GUIDELINES
• 1 Informed consent

  aware give permission to be used in study

  -psych may not give full aims of study to reduce demand characteristics
• Demand characteristics 


  features of study hint to participant what aims are so they behave/answer relating to hint rather than truthfully
• 2 deception

  shouldn't be deceived aspects
• 3 debriefing

  must explain full aim of study (esp if had to decieve) at end of the study
• 4 right to withdraw

  know they can leave study at any time and data wont be published
• 5 confidentiality


  tell participants responses will not be identifiable as own and all data won't be published
• 6 protection


  ensure left in same physical/psychological state entered
• 7 observations


  only take place where members of public can see behavior
• Strengths/Problems of conducting useful research

  S:

  -improves humans/animal behavior in some way

  W:

  -studies might be unethical to gain more valid results

  -need to be high in ecological validity to be more of use to society, but difficult if in laboratory
• Ethnocentric bias


  behaviors/response of study uses participants not from own ethnic group

  -psychologists may feel own ethnic group superior to ones

  -misinterpret behaviors, draw wrong conclusions
• Reliability


  whether researchers can test something again to see if they have similar results (lab exp)

  -replicate to see if similar results are obtained
• Validity


  how accurate findings are from a study (ecological validity)
• Individual explanations


  account for behavior using factors within the person (dispositional factors, personality)
• Situational explanations


  behavior using factors from external environment (situations people find themselves in)
• Strengths/Problems of Ind vs Sit

  S:

  -findings useful to society as a whole, explaining human behavior clearly

  -interaction between individual/situational found in self

  W:

  -not easy to seperate factors

  -may be unethical to gain more valid results

  -needs high ecological validity to be more of use (dif in lab)
• Nature vs Nurture

  nature: behaviors thought to be hard wired into people pre-birth (innate/genetic biological factors

  nurture: behaviors developed through lifetime; environment surrounded in psychological factors
• Strengths/Problems of n/n


  S:

  -useful to society as a whole, explains behaviors clearly

  -interaction between both sides makes study more valid

  W:

  -not always easy to separate as purely nature (genetic); socially sensible

  -unethical to gain more valid results
• Psychometrics


  "measurement of the mind" ex: Intelligence Quotient (IQ) test/aptitude

  -standardized compared to "norm" how intelligent/certain personality
• Strengths/Prob of psychometrics

  S:

  -standardized large sample people (objective and scientific)

  -comparisons useful as peoples results are compared on the same standardized scale

  -standardized=reliable measures

  W:

  -issues with validity, actually measuring behavior supposed to measure?

  -if tests measure specific cultural knowledge rather than behavior could be seen as ethnocentric
• Quantitative and Qualitative Data

  quantitative: form of a number, data statistically

  qualitative: descriptions in words, rich in detail, allows participants to explain answers to questions
• Strengths/Prob Quantitative

  S:

  -data numerical: easier to compare/statistical analysis

  -objective and scientific; minimize chance of miscalculations

  
  

  W:

  -miss out on valuable info (why?)

  -seen as reductionist, comlex ideas/behaviors reduced to number/percentage
• Strengths/Prob Qualitative

  S:

  -data rich in-depth responses, not reductionist

  -understand why participants think, feel, act a certain way

  W:

  -interpretation of data could be subjective

  -researcher bias; select data that fits hypothesis/aim