Chapter 2 Doing Social Psychology Research

Why Should You Learn About Research Methods?  It can improve your reasoning about real-life events  This makes you a more sophisticated consumer of information.  When we encounter facts, we should be saying “prove it,” not blindly accepting them.

Developing Ideas: Beginning the Research Process  Step 1: Ask a question.  Step 2: Find out what’s already been done on your topic, and refine your question.  Step 3: Develop a hypothesis, or maybe even a theory.  A theory is a set of principles used to explain something you observe.  Theories should be simple and should inspire more research to test them.

Refining Ideas: Defining and Measuring Social Psychological Variables  When you decide on something to study, you must take the conceptual variable (love, conformity, prejudice…) and create an operational definition for the study.  Example:  Conceptual variable: conformity  Operational definition for your study: conformity = the number of times a person agrees with the group even though the group is obviously wrong.  Operational definition should have construct validity – it should accurately manipulate or measure the conceptual variable.

Measuring Variables  Option 1: Self-reports  Participants can answer questions on a survey, write narrative responses, verbally respond, etc.  Not always accurate because:  We don’t want to look bad!  Wording and context of questions can affect answers. Asking about “95% success” vs. “5% failure” can change answers.  Memory lapses

Measuring Variables  Option 2: Observation  Researchers observe participants’ actions, either in the lab or the field.  Can be done by a human or by machines (heart rate monitors, timed computer responses, etc.)  Not always accurate because:  We might act differently knowing we’re being observed.  Requires interrater reliability – different observers must agree on what they observe.

Practice: Construct Validity Pretend you are performing an experiment to find out if giving compliments will increase a person’s self-esteem. Therefore, self-esteem is your conceptual variable. How can you turn self-esteem into something measurable? With a partner, come up with an operational definition for self-esteem. After you’ve done this, ask yourself if your operational definition has construct validity. Does your method of measuring self- esteem actually do so accurately?

One Type of Research: Descriptive Research  Seeks to describe people and their thoughts, feelings, and behaviors.  Done using:  Observation (e.g. hidden cameras)  Looking through archives (e.g. articles, published statistics)  Surveys  To be accurate, should use random sampling, where everyone in a population being studied has an equal chance of being in the study.  For example, if I am studying “women,” then every woman in the world would need to have an equal chance of being in my study. It would be much easier to therefore study “American women” or an even smaller subset.

Another Type of Research: Correlational Research  Seeks to measure the association between variables. (e.g. the relationship between GPA and SAT scores)  Positive correlation: as one variable increases, so does the other. (Will have a correlation coefficient above 0 to +1.0)  Negative correlation: as one variable increases, the other decreases. (Will have a correlation coefficient below 0 to -1.0)  CORRELATION IS NOT CAUSATION. Just because A and B are positively correlated does not mean that A causes B or that B causes A.

Practice: Correlation  I will now pair you up. If you are the “A” partner, then in your notes, write down two things (like my GPA/SAT example) that you think are positively correlated. Discuss with a partner WHY you think they’re positively correlated, and then discuss causation – does one variable cause the other? What OTHER factors could potentially explain the correlation? Take notes on your discussion. If you are the “B” partner, do the same thing, but with two things you think are negatively correlated. Be ready to share.

Experiment  Requires: 1) Experimenter control over events in the study 2) Random assignment of participants to conditions  Means that each participant has an equal chance of being in any of the conditions.  Can occur in the lab or the field.  Examines the effects of one or more independent variables on one or more dependent variables.

Practice: Random Assignment I will now come around the room with a bag of differently colored pieces of paper. Each of you will draw one without looking. I will then demonstrate how random assignment works.

Experiment cont.  Independent variable: the factors that experimenters manipulate or change to see if they have an effect on the…  Dependent variable: the factors that experimenters measure to see if they are affected by the independent variable.  For example, if researchers want to find out if receiving compliments increases a person’s self esteem, then the independent variable would be the compliments, and the dependent variable would be the self-esteem.

Practice: Independent & Dependent Variables In your notes, write down the dependent and independent variables for each of the following examples.  I want to test whether or not the temperature has an effect on people’s moods.  I want to test whether or not having music playing affects students’ performance on tests.  I want to test whether or not smiling at a person will make them more likely to laugh at my joke.  I want to test whether or not dim lighting makes people more relaxed.

Experiment cont.  Once results are in, researchers must determine:  Statistical significance – how likely an outcome could be due to chance. Generally, if a result could have occurred by chance less than 5% of the time, then the results are statistically significant.  This can help be determined by replicating the results of the experiment.  Internal validity – reasonable certainty that the independent variables are what actually caused the effects on the dependent variables.  You want to make sure that the increase in self-esteem was caused by the compliments, and not by some other factor, like what the participant did earlier in the day.

Experiment cont.  More things researchers must determine once results are in:  Experimenter expectancy effects – when the experimenter’s expectations about the results affect his/her behavior and thus influence participant responses. This is obviously bad for an experiment.  External validity – reasonable confidence that the same results would be obtained with other people in other situations.  This requires that the experiment:  resembled real life (mundane realism)  lead participants to behave naturally, perhaps using deception and/or confederates (experimental realism).

Meta-Analysis  This is a newer research technique that we won’t discuss in detail.  It involves taking studies already performed and combining their results to draw conclusions.

Ethics and Values in Social Psych  The use of deception has been problematic and debated in research as sometimes unethical.  Deception is only to be used if it’s the only feasible option.  In 1974, regulations were established to protect human participants through Institutional Review Boards meant to evaluate all research proposals on ethical grounds.  Researchers must now obtain informed consent before and must debrief participants after an experiment.