Scientific Procedure

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Scientific Procedure

• Science begins with analysis
• Breaking down complex problem into its elements
• Psychological analysis of emotions, cognitions,
  and behavior involve
• Description
• Prediction
• Explanation

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Nature of Scientific Reality

• What is a theory?
• Set of related statements that explain a variety
  of occurrences

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Nature of Scientific Reality

• Theory in psychology performs 2 major functions
• Provides framework for systematic and organized
  display of data
• Allows for production of predictions for
  situations in which no data have been obtained
• Guides future research

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Nature of Scientific Reality

• Scientific understanding is tentative
• Incorrect theories are modified with empirical
  tools
• Baltimore (1997) Questions are not settled
  rather, they are given provisional answers for
  which it is contingent upon the imagination of
  followers to find more illuminating solutions

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Science and Developing a Research Question
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Behavioral Science Common Sense

• Unlike other physical and natural sciences
• Behavioral science often deals with topics
• Familiar
• Common-sense
• Behavioral scientists have often discredited
  popular theories
• Parents should not respond too quickly to crying
  baby
• Geniuses are more likely to be crazy/strange than
  people of average intelligence
• Paying people a great deal of money to do a job
  increases their motivation to do it
• these assumptions blind us

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Why bother with the scientific method?

• Empirical Reasoning vs Pseudoscience
• Acquire information/skills one can use later
• Limits of empirical methodsleap of faith
• (e.g., Hawthorne Effect)

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Strategies of Discovery

• How do you come up with a research idea?
• Research literature
• Presentations at meetings
• Replication of a published study
• Observation

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Stages of Discovery

• 1. Initial Thinking Stage
• Use of case study approach
• In-depth examination of individual/group of
  individuals with shared characteristics
• E.g., Hermann Ebbinghaus

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Stages of Discovery

• Making sense of a paradoxical incident
• Latane and Darley
• Using metaphors or analogies
• E.g., innoculation, downward spiral

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Stages of Discovery

• Resolving conflicting results
• When one finds, for example, that competent
  observers advocate strongly divergent points of
  view, it seems likely on a priori grounds that
  both have observed something valid about the
  natural situation and that both represent a part
  of the truthCampbell and Stanley
• E.g., Robert Zajonc

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Stages of Discovery

• Improving on older ideas
• Stanley Milgram
• Serendipity
• Faculty for making lucky discoveries
• E.g., Paul is dead

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Stages of Discovery

• Rumors formed to deal w/ anxiety/uncertainty by
  generating stories that explain and provide a
  rationale for behavior
• Rumors are passed when
• people feel they are credible or plausible
• although when anxiety is intense, people may not
  worry about the credibility of what they are
  nervously talking

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Stages of Discover

• Rumor generation and transmission has been
  compared to the loading and firing of a gun
• Rumor is loaded in anxious uncertain climate
• Trigger is pulled when people believe bullet
  will hit the mark in same way rumor is
  transmitted if the teller believes it as credible
  and plausible
• When anxiety is high, transmission of wild rumors
  are like a shot in the dark

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Stages of discovery

• 2. Plausibility Stage
• Literature Search
• Realistic in how much material you really need
• Ask instructor for suggestions of key works
• Do not expect to complete lit. search in one day

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Stages of discovery

• Operational and theoretical definitions
• Operational Definitions
• Links concepts to observable events
• empirical means used to measure or to manipulate
  them
• E.g., hunger, clinical depression
• Theoretical Definition (a.k.a., conceptual)
• Assign the meaning of terms more abstractly

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Stages of discovery

• Acceptability stage
• scientist accepts plausibility of idea
• now molds it into a testable supposition,
  otherwise known as Working Hypothesis or
  experimental hypothesis
• Hypothesis is different than theory
• E.g., social comparison theory

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Stages of discovery

• For a working hypothesis to turn into an
  acceptable hypothesis, 3 criteria must be met

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Stages of Discovery

• Correspondence with reality
• Extent to which hypothesis agrees w/ accepted
  scientific wisdom (respected scientific theory)
• The better the agreement, the better the payoff

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Stages of Discovery

• 2. Coherence and parsimony
• How well the hypothesis sticks together
• How frugal the statement of the hypothesis is
• Occams Razor what can be explained in fewer
  words or by fewer principles is explained
  needlessly by more

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Stages of Discovery

• 3. Falsifiability
• -hypotheses that cannot, in principle, be
  refuted by any means are not within the realm of
  science

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Once you have a research idea

• Two or more hypotheses are tested against each
  other
• Null Hypothesis

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Questions that every investigator must address

• How should I measure subjects feelings/thoughts/b
  ehavior?
• How do I obtain a sample for my research?
• Given my research question, what is most
  appropriate research strategy?
• How can I be sure my study is as well designed as
  possible?
• What are most appropriate and useful ways of
  analyzing data?
• How should my findings be reported?
• What are ethical issues involved in conducting
  this research?

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Getting Ready for Research

• Read the research literature in an area that
  interests you
• Deduce hypotheses from an existing theory
• Apply an old theory to a new phenomenon
• Reverse the direction of causality for a
  commonsense hypothesis
• Break a process down into its subcomponents
• Think of variables that may mediate known
  cause-n-effect relationship