Challenges with Studying Humans

• Challenges of studying human behaviour

  • Cannot directly observe people's minds
  • People may change behaviour if they know they are being observed
  • Ethical issues with observing people without consent
  • People may be dishonest or refuse to share personal information
  • Language and understanding can be barriers to self-report methods
• Methods psychologists use to study behaviour


  • Interviews
  • Questionnaires
  • Experiments
  • Observations
  • Case studies
• Observations


  Observing people as they go about their everyday life or in a controlled laboratory setting
• You cannot directly observe people's minds when observing their behaviour, you can only make assumptions about their underlying motivations
• If people are aware they are being observed, they may change their behaviour
• Observing people without telling them raises ethical issues of consent and right to privacy
• Self-report methods


  Psychologists rely on people to share their feelings, thoughts and behaviours with them through surveys or interviews
• People may be dishonest out of fear of judgment or embarrassment when answering questions
• People may refuse to share personal information when asked questions
• For some research topics, only particular types of people may be willing to answer questions, skewing the data
• Language barriers and lack of understanding can impact the quality of data collected through self-report methods
• Measuring variables


  Psychologists measure things like mental health, motivation, love
• Different researchers use different methods to measure happiness, leading to different results
• Measuring human factors is complex and it can be difficult to find objective and accurate ways to measure things like happiness, relationship satisfaction and intelligence
• Due to practical constraints, psychologists sometimes have to use simplistic methods like rating scales or IQ tests that may not give a full picture of what they are trying to measure
• The challenges in studying humans raise questions about the validity of claims made in the human sciences