AP Psychology Unit Two

As we bring Unit One to an end, we are now moving onward to Unit Two! This article is a summary of Unit Two, which regards the scientific methods research psychologists employ in their studies.

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The Need for Psychological Science

Oftentimes, people rely on their intuition heavily, thus enabling them to overestimate their own forecasts. There are two phenomena that shed light on why we cannot merely rely on intuition OR “common sense”.

• Hindsight Bias, otherwise dubbed as the “I-knew-it-all-along”, is the inclination to believe a finding after having learned its outcome. Errors in these common beliefs are reasons people have to rely on psychological science/research; “common sense” in the context of hindsight bias can be described with the question “what will happen” rather than “what has happened” (which is the true question to answer for actual common sense).

• With hindsight bias developed, a person can develop what is known as Judgmental Overconfidence. This means that after having learned the outcome, the answer to the problem can appear obvious, (via hindsight bias), so much so that it makes us overconfident.

• The need for psychological science also enhances the scientific attitude, which has three components (and yet relates to why we need psychological science):

1. It includes and amplifies curiosity (without misleading or being misled).

2. The (necessary) skeptic scrutiny to challenge competing ideas. This does not entail cynicism.

3. Open-mindedness. This does not entail gullibility nor naivete.

“To believe with certainty, we must begin by doubting it” -Polish Proverb

• Besides the scientific attitude being developed with psychological science, it also assists and prepares us to develop a smarter way of thinking, commonly dubbed as critical thinking. It examines assumptions, discerning hidden/subtle values, evaluates studies & evidence.

How Psychologists Ask and Answer Questions (Research Methods):

Along with arming themselves with the scientific attitude and critical thinking (& analysis), psychologists also utilize the scientific method and the three research methods that are going to be detailed below.

• The Scientific Method - besides the scientific attitude - is also employed. With the scientific method, a theory - or is an explanation that aligns with a set of principles, which in turn organizes observations & forecasts behaviors and/or events - is documented. The theory is simplified as it summarizes facts and links them with conceptual principles. For example, a good theory of depression would allow researchers to organize innumerable depression-related observations. Now, for a theory to be considered good, it must have a testable prediction or a hypothesis. It confirms or rejects a theory based on the results it has specified.

  • In order to check on their preconceived biases in research, psychologists will report their research with operational definitions, which is a statement of the operations or measures used to define the research variables. It cannot simply describe those variables with the standard (dictionary) definition. For example, hunger may be (operationally) defined as hours without eating, or generosity as money contributed (examples from the textbook itself).

  • Some researchers would be able to replicate the essence of a research study, only with different variables to test if the finding can be extended to other circumstances and other participants.

1. This first research method is Description, which aims to observe and describe behavior. In psychology, description is a general starting point in which it focuses on the analysis & study of individual and/or collective behavior. The way it is conducted is by a case study, a survey, or a naturalistic observation.

• The Case Study is one of the oldest methods in describing-&-observing-behavior research. It examines an individual in-depth in hopes that their results are applicable to all of us (thus considering the finding an influential, universal principle). Although it can suggest potentially promising findings, it does have the tendency to generalize others from the examination of one person.

• A Survey is another description technique that examines and ascertains a variety of cases in less depth. Researchers want to estimate from a (representative) sample of their self-reported attitudes/behaviors.

WORDING AFFECTS the answers of a sample and critical thinkers are more likely to delicately phrase a question (or will reflect on how the phrasing may affect what answers the participants express).

Random Sampling, another component of the survey, may also aid in equal opportunity for various types of participants in the study.

• The third description method is known as Naturalistic Observation, which records behavior in natural environments. These observations may “range from watching chimpanzees… to videotaping parent-child interactions in different cultures” (another example from the textbook itself). Like the previous methods, Naturalistic Observation solely describes behavior or reveals something about behavior.

2. The second research method is Correlation, or a measure to what extent the two factors are associated with one another. For example, you may want to know how test scores correlate with academic success. A correlation coefficient further assists in explaining how the variables correlate in terms of statistical measures (ranging from -1.0 to 1,0). Knowing how much stress may be related to developing ailments later in life, for instance, will tell us how effective contributor stress is to the ailments developed later. When visually represented, research psychologists use scatter plots (seen below) - or a graph with a cluster of plotted dots representing values of the two variables that are mentioned in the study. TO DETERMINE ITS TREND: As x increases, y increases (perfect positive correlation | +1.0), As x decreases, y decreases (perfect negative correlation | -1.0), no relationship (0.0).

• While correlation allows us to predict, it does not prove nor strengthen the cause-and-effect relationship; it simply indicates the possibility of causation.

“Correlation does not prove causation” -Myers’ AP Textbook

• An Illusory Correlation (think of illusory as an illusion or nonexistent) is a perceived type of correlation, therefore the correlation between two factors is not scientifically proven but is widely believed. An amazing example is a superstition, a presumption, as they are influential and people are inclined to over-rely on them.

3. The third main research method is Experimentation, one that enables the researcher to manipulate one or more independent variable(s) to observe the effects it had on the dependent variable(s). Randomly assigning (random samples) participants to experimental groups (those who receive treatment) and control groups (those who don’t). “A random assignment controls for possible confounding variables”. If research assistants nor participants know which group is receiving the treatment, then the study is using a double-blind procedure. This is used to prevent research bias and the placebo effect, which is an effect caused by an inert substance.

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TEXTBOOK REFERENCE:

Myers, David. Myers’ Psychology for AP®. Reprint, Worth Publishers, 2011.