Admit Slip List 5 things that come to

Admit Slip List 5 things that come to mind when you think of research.

Psychological Experimentation

General Procedures • Step 1 – Ask Research Question: • Does watching violence on TV lead to aggressive behavior? • Step 2 – Form a Hypothesis: • People who watch violent TV programs will engage in more acts of violence than people who don’t.

General Procedures • Step 3 – Determine Variables: • People watch violent TV programs (independent variables: • People engage in aggressive acts (dependent variables: ) • Step 4 – Experiment (Testing): • A. Participants (randomly assigned to groups) – Experimental group » Spends four hours a day watching violent TV.

General Procedures – Control Group • Spends four hours a day watching nonviolent TV. B. Measure aggressive behavior(dependent variable)of experimental and control groups. • Step 5 – Compare Measurements • Step 6 – Interpret Results and Draw Conclusions

Scientific Attitude • 1. Curiosity about the world. – As psychologist we must be observant of our surroundings. – Ask questions about who, what, when, where and why. 2. Seek data driven answers. – Answer the Who, what, when, where and why questions by using collected data

Scientific Attitude • 3. Be humble about all we don’t know. – It’s ok to say we do not know how to answer a questions or where it derived or why. – Part of learning 4. Don’t take things at face value. – Question everything, even if you collected the data yourself.

Steps to Successful Research

1. Define your population • Population = the group you are interested in. – all humans? – people with depression? – Adolescents?

2. Obtain a sample to study • Sample – a subgroup of your population • In order for results to be generalizable to a population (able to infer that it is true for all members of the population), you need to obtain a representative sample. • Random sample – everyone in the population has an equal chance of being in your sample.

3. Operationally define variables • Definitions should be quantifiable when possible. • Reduces subjectivity and expectancy effects.

4. Manipulate the independent variable (control all other variables) • This is easier said than done. – Confounding variables – variables in a study that are not controlled for.

How do we control for confounding variables? • Large sample size (more likely to be representative) • Random assignment to groups (control and experimental) • Blinding – Single vs. double – Controls for expectancy effects – Placebos or sham treatment

5. Collect and analyze data • Do basic statistics (mean, median, mode, standard deviation) to simplify data. • Compare control and experimental groups. • Run inferential statistical test (more on this later) – T test, chi squared, ANOVA