PSYCH424:

Lesson 2: Theory and Research Methods

Lesson Overview (1 of 8)
Lesson Overview

Lesson Overview

Lesson Readings & Activities

By the end of this lesson, make sure you have completed the readings and activities found in the Course Schedule.

Part 1: Theory

Philosophers and psychologists have long observed that people’s take on reality can be highly relative; two people looking at the same thing can perceive very different things. We can all confirm this ourselves by browsing through the comments section of any news story posted on social media. Our next door neighbors may hold different views than we do on politics or social issues because they have grown up in a different social reality than we did. Every human mind is compelled to create narratives about reality that appear to make sense and that serve the many practical purposes required for individual and collective functioning (Mar, 2004). Scientists are no different, but the way we develop our narratives is grounded in objectivity, based on evidence. That evidence is provided to us using the scientific process (sometimes referred to as the scientific method), which you have undoubtedly learned about in several science-based courses since elementary school, and we will cover yet again in Chapter 2 of the textbook. 

The narratives that scientists use to explain and understand phenomena are referred to as theories. A theory is a set of interrelated propositions (i.e. educated/informed explanations) concerning some set of phenomena. What makes these different from the everyday theories that laypeople hold? First, our theories must be tested, hence why we are also covering Chapter 3 on Research Methods in this Lesson, as the two are inextricably tied together. It is not enough for a social psychologist to observe some behavior in the real world and declare a theory based on their informal observations. They must take those observations and develop a research study that can confirm or disconfirm their initial observations with empirical evidence.

How do we test a theory? Well, first we start out with a hypothesis. A hypothesis is a prediction about a relationship between variables. Let's use an example of caffeine and performance on the quizzes in this course. If we start with a theory that states that caffeine improves cognitive performance, what prediction could we derive from this? Well, how about students who consume caffeinated coffee 30 minutes before taking the quizzes will perform significantly better than students who drink decaffeinated coffee 30 minutes before taking the quizzes. It is important to note the specificity of this hypothesis....there is no guessing what the prediction is. There is no ambiguity. This makes the hypothesis falsifiable, that is, it can be specifically tested and it will either be supported or it will be falsified. We can assign students to drink caffeinated coffee or decaffeinated coffee and see how their quiz performance differs. This is hypothesis testing, which is where we utilize research methods to determine if our hypothesis is supported or not. Let's assume we run this study, and we find that caffeinated students perform, on average, 10% better than decaffeinated students on the quizzes, this observation of the data provides support for our original theory. Thus the theory that caffeine improves cognitive performance is supported.

It is important to note that this does not set the theory in stone. As you will note from Figure 2.1 in the textbook, this is a never ending cycle. The theory is always subject to testing and refining. For instance, there may be boundary conditions that limit how generalizable the theory may be. For instance, what if we repeated our caffeine study in a really difficult mathematics course, where students reported having more anxiety than they do in this course. Perhaps the caffeine condition would make those students too jittery to perform well on the quizzes, and hence decrease performance. Additionally, it is important to replicate our original findings, preferably using different study parameters, to make sure our findings were not a fluke. For instance, re-running this study using Applied Social Psychology students at another university to ensure that the results don't simply apply to a subgroup of individuals.

Theory (continued) (2 of 8)
Theory (continued)

Part 1: Theory

Philosophers and psychologists have long observed that people’s take on reality can be highly relative; two people looking at the same thing can perceive very different things. We can all confirm this ourselves by browsing through the comments section of any news story posted on social media. Our next door neighbors may hold different views than we do on politics or social issues because they have grown up in a different social reality than we did. Every human mind is compelled to create narratives about reality that appear to make sense and that serve the many practical purposes required for individual and collective functioning (Mar, 2004). Scientists are no different, but the way we develop our narratives is grounded in objectivity, based on evidence. That evidence is provided to us using the scientific process (sometimes referred to as the scientific method), which you have undoubtedly learned about in several science-based courses since elementary school, and we will cover yet again in Chapter 2 of the textbook. 

The narratives that scientists use to explain and understand phenomena are referred to as theories. A theory is a set of interrelated propositions (i.e. educated/informed explanations) concerning some set of phenomena. What makes these different from the everyday theories that laypeople hold? First, our theories must be tested, hence why we are also covering Chapter 3 on Research Methods in this Lesson, as the two are inextricably tied together. It is not enough for a social psychologist to observe some behavior in the real world and declare a theory based on their informal observations. They must take those observations and develop a research study that can confirm or disconfirm their initial observations with empirical evidence.

How do we test a theory? Well, first we start out with a hypothesis. A hypothesis is a prediction about a relationship between variables. Let's use an example of caffeine and performance on the quizzes in this course. If we start with a theory that states that caffeine improves cognitive performance, what prediction could we derive from this? Well, how about students who consume caffeinated coffee 30 minutes before taking the quizzes will perform significantly better than students who drink decaffeinated coffee 30 minutes before taking the quizzes. It is important to note the specificity of this hypothesis....there is no guessing what the prediction is. There is no ambiguity. This makes the hypothesis falsifiable, that is, it can be specifically tested and it will either be supported or it will be falsified. We can assign students to drink caffeinated coffee or decaffeinated coffee and see how their quiz performance differs. This is hypothesis testing, which is where we utilize research methods to determine if our hypothesis is supported or not. Let's assume we run this study, and we find that caffeinated students perform, on average, 10% better than decaffeinated students on the quizzes, this observation of the data provides support for our original theory. Thus the theory that caffeine improves cognitive performance is supported.

It is important to note that this does not set the theory in stone. As you will note from Figure 2.1 in the textbook, this is a never ending cycle. The theory is always subject to testing and refining. For instance, there may be boundary conditions that limit how generalizable the theory may be. For instance, what if we repeated our caffeine study in a really difficult mathematics course, where students reported having more anxiety than they do in this course. Perhaps the caffeine condition would make those students too jittery to perform well on the quizzes, and hence decrease performance. Additionally, it is important to replicate our original findings, preferably using different study parameters, to make sure our findings were not a fluke. For instance, re-running this study using Applied Social Psychology students at another university to ensure that the results don't simply apply to a subgroup of individuals.

Social Psychological Theories (3 of 8)
Social Psychological Theories

Social Psychological Theories

In this course we will encounter numerous social psychological theories that have possible uses in understanding and solving practical and social problems. Here is a list of most of the theories that you will encounter in this course. Although you should have learned about these theories in previous courses, you may wish to brush up on them by looking them up (use the index) in your applied social psychology textbook or another social psychology book. Hint: this will also be a good idea to start you thinking about your Policy Proposal Paper, as you will be utilizing at least two social psychological theories in that paper.

Part 2: Research Methods (4 of 8)
Part 2: Research Methods

Part 2: Research Methods

The research methods in applied social psychology are very similar to that of other fields of psychology that you may have studied. If you have taken PSYCH 301, much of this will be review for you. Thinking back to the scientific process, this section will focus on the hypothesis testing side of things.

Methods of Data Collection

One widely used method for collecting data in social psychology is to rely on self-report, that is, we ask participants questions and allow them to report to us what they are think, how they feel, or how they behave. Most commonly, this is done via surveys. As you will read in Chapter 3, there are several different types of survey-style questions that can be utilized, which I won't repeat here. One thing to really consider is how the wording of the survey questions can impact the results. Researchers must be sure that their questions are worded precisely, in a way that all respondents will understand, and do not lead participants towards a given choice (i.e., "loaded questions"). Additionally, the order that questions are persented in should be taken into consideration. For instance, it is highly recommended not to ask participants information about their demographics (e.g., age, gender, race/ethnicity) at the beginning of a survey, as 1) participants may begin to become bored by the survey and start answering more rapidly/less honestly toward the end simply to finish, or 2) if the survey is assessing differences as a function of one of those demographic questions, the participant may be tipped off about the purpose of the study and may alter their answers in response to this. 

Survey questions can either be closed-ended (participants are given choices for responses) or open-ended (participants can type/write in their own responses). By far, most surveys utilize closed-ended options, as these are far easier to analyze when examining the data. If we ask participants to report their level of anxiety on a scale of 1 to 7, we can plug that number directly into statistical software to run our analyses. But what if we ask participants to describe their level of anxiety? How do we compare their anxiety to that of other participants? Not such a simple task at this point. Open-ended responses are popular in qualtiative research (more on this later), and they are sometimes used in demographics questions. For instance, they can be used to ask for a participant's gender, allowing for gender nonbinary participants to respond in a way that most accurately reflects their social identity.

Survey research has exploded with the invention of the internet. Never has data been so readily available to social psychologists. Within minutes, data can be collected from participants all across the planet. With that said, there are some caveats to this type of research. For one, the data seems to be lower quality than data collected in-person (Heerwegh & Loosveltd, 2008). Participants may be more likely to respond at random, especially without someone watching over them. Another concern is whether there are real people answering your questions. Amazon MTurk is a platform that is used by many researchers to get access to cheap data, where participants can be paid for pennies on the dollar. However, there have been reports of individuals using bots to automatically respond to surveys, allowing them to earn money for participation without actually filling out the surveys, rending the data collected unusable. Another concern, which impacts many types of survey research, are lower response rates. Most survey requests that are sent out are ignored, thus only a small subset of indviduals will actually complete the surveys. This may bias the sample of respondents, for instance, perhaps only participants who have a lot of free time and are high in the personality trait of conscientiousness are willing to fill out the surveys. Thus the results may not generalize to other populations of individuals.

Another general limitation of surveys and other self-report measures....participants may not be completely honest in their responses, or they may lack self-awareness. For instance, a survey designed to assess how racist a participant is will probably not elicit completely honest responses from all participants. Participants may respond in socially desirable ways, that is, they may respond in ways that make themselves look better. To get around some of these limitations, researchers may use observational methods.

Observational methods involve directly observing the participants' behaviors. For instance, if we are interested in how a participant will act toward a member of a different race, rather than simply ask survey questions that they may not feel that they can answer honestly, we can set up a scenario where they are forced to interact with a member of a different race in the lab, and observe how they behave. For instance, their facial expressions could be recorded and coded for how much they smile or scowl in the cross-race interaction. The chapter will get into the different types of observational methods involved. It is important to note that these methods tend to be more time and resource intensive, hence surveys are more popularly used, especially in applied social psychology. However, when possible, observational methods are often superior.

Research Methods (continued) (5 of 8)
Research Methods (continued)

Part 2: Research Methods (continued)

Types of Research

Whether one utilizes self-report or observational methods for their data collection, both can be utilized in research designs. But before we get into research designs, let's first provide an overview of the different broad types of research. Basic research is knowledge for the sake of knowledge. A person has a question about something and finds out the “why” behind it. Your most typical example of this is an academic researcher such as most of the social psychologists at research universities. They are interested in the abstract ideas and theories, not necessarily the applications of those ideas. This isn't to say that their findings have no applied value, but this isn't the purpose behind the research. Applied research, on the other hand, has an explicit focus on solving practical problems in the world, sometimes without any theoretical basis. This type of research is often done in government, private corporations, small businesses and anywhere else the scientific method can be used to enhance decision making. For instance, an applied researcher in a big business might collect information about employee behaviors to improve the effectiveness of a training program. Both rely on empirical data, but the use of that data is very different. Basic researchers publish their results in academic journals and books for use by other researchers and their general interest on the topic, while applied researchers may or may not publish their work and instead focus on the results’ use to solve problems. The dichotomy between the two types is a bit forced though. In reality the two often go hand in hand or complement one another. For instance, applied researchers may look at the basic research to gain a full grasp of the reason behind behavior before trying to implement a solution in their situation. Or the opposite may happen; a basic researcher may see a practical problem as an interesting topic and start a lab study based on that problem. Or (and this is very often the case in applied social psychology) a basic and applied researcher will team up to get the best of both worlds.

Practically speaking, both basic and applied research take many forms and we will review some of the major types here briefly as you most likely have gone over these in your introduction to social psychology course or another course. The major types include; quantitative (most typically represented by self-reports and observational methods such as experiments) and qualitative (most typically represented by open-ended interviews and clinical case studies). Quantitative methods include collecting empirical data that typically comes in the form of objective data. That is, data that is not open to much interpretation; in other words, the numbers speak for themselves. Qualitative research methods on the other hand are not necessarily numbers based and tend to be more subjective or open to interpretation but often provide very detailed information about a topic. Quantitative methods are favored by researchers who want to know overall trends and gain the best explanation for all situations (i.e. the explanation is generalizable). Qualitative methods are favored by researchers looking for a solution to an individual’s problem or are looking to explain a very unique situation. In general, quantitative methods are preferable to applied social psychologists as they are looking to explain human behavior in group situations and are looking for an explanation that will carry over for all people. Qualitative methods tend to be favored by clinicians or counselors as they aid in helping that research solve an individual client’s issues.

Research Methods (continued) (6 of 8)
Research Methods (continued)

Part 2: Research Methods (continued)

Research Designs

As stated previously, whether we use self-report or obserational methods to obtain data, both can be used in the research design of our choice. There are four different types of research designs.

The textbook does a great job of explaining each of these individually, with Table 3.1 giving a nice overview. An important take-home point from these methods is that there are trade-offs associated with each approach. While true experiments give us the greatest ability to establish causal relationships (i.e., say for certain that X variable causes a change in Y variable), they are often the most difficult to conduct due to practical concerns, especially in social psychology. True experiments rely on random assignment, that is, participants must be able to be assigned to the independent variables of interest. While that can be done in some situations (i.e., if we want to study the impact that violent video games have on aggression, we can randomly assign participants to either play violent video games for 10 hours per week or non-violent video games for 10 hours per week, then test their level of aggression), there are other situations where this isn't possible. For instance, if we want to study gender differences in aggressiveness, well, one problem you should be able to quickly identify...how do we randomly assign someone to a gender?! Well, we can't. This is where we have to rely on quasi-experimental designs. While this is as good as we can get in establishing causality on variables for which we can't randomly assign, it comes with limitations. We are more prone to internal validity violations (i.e., confounds) that may explain the results. Variables that may correlate with gender could be causing the differences we find in our dependent variable.

Sometimes, we are unable to establish causality, and all we can hope for is to determine if a relationship occurs between variables. For instance, if we're interested in how one's diet is related to their mental health, it can be very difficult (and expensive) to run a large-scale experiment and manipulate participants' diets, so researchers often rely on correlational methods to obtain this data. They may simply administer a survey that assesses one's diet and their mental health status, and then look for a relationship between the two. One thing to keep in mind, and you've probably heard this over and over, is that correlation does not equal causation. That is, we cannot tell the direction of the relationship here. Does poor eating lead to poor mental health? Does poor mental health lead to poor eating? Is there some third variable involved that influences both (e.g., experiences of trauma). This cannot be repeated enough. Correlation does not equal causation! Correlational research helps set the foundation for future research to examine, preferably in true and quasi experiments, but it alone is insufficient for establishing causal relationships.

Last, we have descriptive methods, which are as they sound, they simply describe a phenonenon of interest. These methods are often used as an exploratory first step in a research process. Rather than utilize inferential statistics, like t-tests and F-tests, which can allow us to make inferences beyond the sample we test, these methods rely on descriptive statistics, like means, frequencies, and percentages. Thus, these methods are not sufficient for making any claims beyond the sample that was used. These methods are not widely used, especially in the published literature, and are often reserved for pilot testing, or seeing if we're even on the right track before we invest time in a full-fledged study. For instance, if we were interested in studying the impact that seeing angry and happy facial expressions have on mood, before we even decide to run the study, we should proabably pilot test our facial expressions to make sure the angry ones actually look angry and the happy ones actually look happy before running a whole study using them. So we can show those faces to 20 participants and have them rate how angry/happy they all look. Then we examine the means to make sure that indeed, the happy faces look happy and the angry faces look angry. Then we can proceed with our actual study.

Research Settings

In addition to the considerations above, there are trade-offs in the setting in which research is conducted. Research can be conducted in the laboratory, where greater experimental control can be utilized. This can often limit the threats to internal validity (i.e., control other variables that may explain the results), however, the laboratory environment is artificial and the results may lack external validity (i.e., how generalizable the study results are). Field studies, where the research is conducted in a more realistic environment, will often lead to greater external validity, but more threats to internal validity. There's always a tradeoff to consider when conducting research. There is no such thing as the perfect research study. Using various methods in various settings is as good as we can get.

Conclusion (7 of 8)
Conclusion

Conclusion

This lesson has tried to give you a quick snapshot of applied social psychological research methods, however it is far from complete. Be sure to give your textbook chapters a thorough read, maybe even twice. While this will likely be the most dense, least fun aspect of the course, it is probably the most important for your intellectual development, as it will extend far beyond this course. Not only will it help you better evaluate social psychological research, it will help you evaluate claims that others make in the real world. We live in a world where we are bombarded with information, whether it's through the 24 hour news cycle, through social media, through YouTube, etc. There's a lot of noise out there, and in order to find the signal in that noise, you need to be able to evaluate claims. How did they get their evidence for their claims? What are the pros and cons to the research that they base their claims on? For example, you'll consistently hear news stories that take correlational research and imply causal statements from it. You should know better and you should immediately question those claims.

References

Heerwegh, D., & Loosveldt, G. (2008). Face-to-face versus web based surveying in a high-internet-coverage population: Differences in response quality. Public Opinion Quarterly, 72, 836-846.

Mar, R.A. (2004). The neuropsychology of narrative: story comprehension, story production and their interrelation. Neuropsychologia, 42, 1414-1434.

 

Conclusion and Assignments (8 of 8)
Conclusion and Assignments

Conclusion

This lesson has tried to give you a quick snapshot of applied social psychological research methods, however it is far from complete. It is highly recommended that you take a research methods course and/or find a more complete resource (such as a research methods textbook) to further your knowledge. There are several compelling reasons to do so. The first is research methods are the backbone of all science, particularly the social sciences, as psychologists and researchers similar to them continually have to adapt their methodology as society changes. The second is even more practical in that it will help you understand your coursework (and therefore succeed). And the final is probably the most personal; knowledge of research methods will make you a better consumer of information; which in our information age is more important than it has ever been; in other words, knowledge of about how to obtain knowledge will allow you to sort out the good from the bad information more successfully in your life, which will give you an advantage over many people.

References

James, W. (1907). Pragmatism: A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking. New York: Hackett Publishing.

Kant, I. (1788). The Critique of Practical Reason.

Luo, S., & Klohnen, E.C. (2005). Assortative Mating and Marital Quality in Newlyweds: A Couple-Centered Approach. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 88(2), 304-326.

Mar, R.A. (2004). The neuropsychology of narrative: story comprehension, story production and their interrelation. Neuropsychologia, 42, 1414-1434.

Pelham, B.W., & Blanton, H. (2007). Conducting Research in Psychology: Measuring the Weight of Smoke. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.

United States Census Bureau. (n.d.). United States Census Bureau Homepage. Retrieved June 16th, 2011 at: http://www.census.gov/

Lesson 2 Assignments

  1. Read Chapters 2 and 3 in your textbook: Social Psychological Theory and Research Methods.
  2. Complete your first essay.
  3. Complete the Lesson 2 Discussion Forum.
  4. Complete Quiz 2.

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