Research Method

Research Methods:

• Hindsight Bias- tendency to believe, after learning the outcome, that you knew it all along
• overconfidence- tend to think we knew more than we do
• The Barnum Effect- tendency for people to accept very general or vague characterizations of themselves and take them to be accurate
• Applied v.s. Basic Research:

          - applied research has clear, practical applications; you can use it!
          - basic research explores questions that you may be curious about, but not intended to be immediately used

• hypothesis- expresses a relationship between two variables; variables can vary among participants in a study

          - independent variable: whatever is being manipulated in the experiment
          - dependent variable: whatever is being measured in the experiment

• Operational Definitions- explain what you mean in the hypothesis; how will the variables be measured in "real life" terms

Types of Research:

• Descriptive Research- describing what you see; any research that observes and records

1. Case Study: detailed picture of one or few subjects
2. Naturalistic Observation
3. Surveys: use interview, mail, phone, internet, etc... most common type; measures correlation; cheap and fast but has a low response rate

• Random Sampling- identify the population you want to study; sample must be representative of the population you want to study
• False Consensus Effect: tendency to overestimate extent to which others share our beliefs and behaviors
• Naturalistic Observation- in which you watch your subjects in their natural environments, do not manipulate the environment
• Hawthorne Effect: just the fact that you know you are in an experiment can cause change
• Correlational Method- expresses a relationship between two variables; does not show causation
• measured using correlation coefficient: a number that measures the strength of a relationship (-1 to +1); relationship gets weaker the closer you get to zero
• positive correlation: variables go in the SAME direction
• negative correlation: variables go in the OPPOSITE direction

Experimental Research:

• explores cause and effect of a relationship
• independent variable: manipulates, effect is being studied
• dependent variable: changes in response to independent variable, is measured

Experimental and Control Group:

• experimental: exposes participants to the treatment
• control: comparison for evaluating the effects

Experimental Methods:

• single blind study- subjects are unaware if assigned to experimental or control group
• double blind study- neither subjects nor experimenters know which group is control or experimental
• descriptive statistic: describes the results of research
• inferential statistic: used to make an inference or draw conclusion beyond the raw data
• central tendency- where does the center of the data tend to be?
• mode- most frequent occurring score in distribution
• mean- arithmetic average of scores in distribution
• median- middle score in rank-ordered in distribution
• range- difference between highest and lowest scores in distribution
• standard deviation: computed measure of how much scores vary around the mean
• high standard variation