Developing Ideas for research

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Chapter 3

• Developing Ideas for research

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Varieties of Psychological research

• Basic vs. Applied Research
• Advantages and disadvantages of each
• The setting laboratory vs. field research
• Advantages and disadvantages of each
• Mundane vs. experimental realism
• Ethical issues

3
Asking empirical questions

• Operational definitions all concepts should be
  defined in terms of a set of operations to be
  performed
• Hypothetical constructs
• Converging operations series of studies using
  different operational definitions converge on a
  common conclusion

4

• Hypothetical
• Constructs
• Operational
• Definitions

• Aggression
• Hitting, yelling, self-report

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Empirical questions come from

• Everyday observations of behavior
• Need to solve a practical problem
• Attempts to support or refute a theory
• Unanswered questions from a study just completed
• Serendipity

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Developing research from theory

• Nature of theory set of logically consistent
  statements about some behavioral phenomenon that
• Best summarizes existing knowledge
• Describes relationships between variables
• Provides an explanation about the phenomenon
• Makes predictions about behavior
• Attributes of a good theory
• Falsification
• Parsimony

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• Developing research from other research
• Unanswered questions from previous studies
• Programs of research
• Replication and Extension
• Creative thinking in science process of
  recognizing meaningful connections between
  apparently unrelated ideas