PSYC2001 - Exam Notes

• Familiarize you with the principles of research methodology and techniques generally used in psychology
• Assignments: APA 7th edition
• Producer Role


  • Brain anatomy, documenting the behaviour of dolphins or monkeys, analyzing data
• Empiricism


  Answering psychological questions with direct, formal observations and communicating with others about what they have learned
• Importance of empiricism


  • For coursework in psychology
  • Graduate school
  • Working in a research lab
  • Will need to know why scientists randomly assign people to groups, how to measure attitudes accurately, or how to interpret results from a graph
  • Help you deepen your understanding of psychological inquiry
• Consumer Role


  • Reading about research so they can apply it to their work, hobbies, relationships, or personal growth
  • Evidence-based treatment
  • Empiricism
  • Critical consumer of information
  • Being able to tell what high-quality research information is
• Scientist


  • Not based on intuition, casual observations or what other people say
  • Conclusions based on empirical methods or research (lots of tests)
  • Talk to the world from journal to journalism
  • Peer review
• Characteristics of the scientific community

  • Universalism - evaluate the claim, not the scientists
  • Communality - created by a community for the community (transparent and shared)
  • Disinterestedness - strive for truth without being swayed by conviction, idealism, politics, or profit
  • Organized Skepticism - QUESTIONS EVERYTHING
• Types of scientific research

  • Applied research - solve practical problems
  • Basic research - enhances the general body of knowledge about a particular topic
  • Translational research - a bridge from basic to applied research
• Theory


  A set of statements that describes general principles about how variables relate to one another
• Hypothesis


  Predictions about the outcome of your research based on theory
• Preregistered


  A term referring to a study in which, before collecting any data, the researcher has stated publicly what the study's outcome is expected to be
• Data


  A set of observations; does the data support the hypothesis and strengthen the theory, or does not support the hypotheses and thus lead to...
• Cupboard Theory


  A mother is valuable to a baby mammal because she is a source of food. The baby animal gets hungry, gets food from the mother by nursing, and experiences a pleasant feeling (reduced hunger). Over time, the sight of the mother acquires positive value because she is the "cupboard" from which comes
• Comfort Theory


  Babies are attached to their mothers because of the comfort of their warm, fuzzy fur. In a natural world, a mother provides food and contact comfort at once, so when the baby clings to her, it is impossible to tell why
• Variable


  Something that varies, so it must have at least two levels or values
• Comparison Group


  A comparison group enables us to compare what would happen both with and without the thing we are interested in
• If surgeons had collected data on both radical mastectomies and other treatments, they could have learned whether other treatments were (a) worse than, (b) about the same as, or (c) better than the surgery
• Basing conclusions on personal experience is that even if a change has occurred, we often can't be too sure what caused it
• Behavioural research is probabilistic - its findings are not expected to explain all cases all the time
• Research is better than experience - adding comparison groups and control groups will show different results when finding research
• Ways that intuition can be biased

  • Swayed by a good story
  • Availability heuristic - things that come to mind easily are more "available" to memory and can guide and/or bias our thinking
  • Present/present bias - we notice what is present and miss the things that are absent
  • Confirmation Bias - seeking and accepting only the evidence that supports what we already think
  • Biased Blindspot - belief that we are unlikely to fall prey to the other biases
• We make mistakes when we base our reasoning on intuition rather than empiricism
• Authority


  Celebrities create a platform (podcast, social media) and listeners believe it is correct because someone of authority answered
• Sources of Information


  • Consulting scientific sources - journal article, chapters in edited books, full-length books (ie, textbooks)
  • Asking questions even when reading something new
  • Empirical sources - I ran a research project, these are the things I asked them, and the answers I got
  • Review-Journal - systematic review, qualitative approach
  • Journal articles must (typically) be peer-reviewed
• Legitimate Scientific Sources


  • PsycINFO
  • Google Scholar
  • Quality Matters
  • Paywalled versus open-access sources
• Sections of a Research Paper

  • Abstract/Introduction - Overarching problem, narrow down topics, goals on the paper
  • Method/Results - Information that no one else has
  • Discussion - Indicating if the theory/data-cycle connects to the goal, what is similar, what is not similar, what are the benefits of knowing this information, identify limitations
• The abstract will tell you what the majority of the paper is about
• The introduction reviews and summarizes the literature, introduces the contribution and current study, and states the hypotheses
• What to look for in the Methods section


  • Participants - Who did I observe
  • Materials - Description of how the variables were measured
  • Procedure - Breakdown of the steps of the study

  
• What to look for in the Results section

  • Outlines the statistical tests
  • Provides the results
  • Compare the results to the statistics
  • Understand the conceptual meaning of the results

  
• What to look for in the Discussion section

  • Summarizes the main results
  • Integrates findings into current literature
  • Outlines the conclusions
  • Discusses implications
• Empirical Journal Articles - What is the argument? What is the evidence to support the argument?
• Chapters and Review Articles - What is the argument? What is the evidence?
• Characteristics of legitimate journalism vs. disinformation

  • Abbreviations - terms used to help the readers understand
  • Deliberate creation and sharing of information known to be false
  • Motivations - propaganda, passion, politics, provocations, profit, parody
• Variable


  Something that changes or varies, so it needs to have at least two levels or values
• Constant


  A constant does not vary. In other words, it stays the same
• Types of Variables


  • Measured Variable - Levels are simply observed and recorded
  • Manipulated Variable - Is controlled
• Definitions of a Variable

  • Construct/Conceptual Definition - Based on how the variables are theoretically defined
  • Operational Definition - Based on how the variables are measured
• Operationalizing a variable involves using self-report questionnaires, checking records, or using teacher observations