Introduction

• Rationalism - The view that reason and logical argument but not experience is the most important way to acquire knowledge

Aristotle - Used rationalism to reason that human thoughts, perceptions, and emotions were products of the heart rather than the brain

• Heart is affected by our emotional state = the heart. must be the seat of our senses and emotion

Scientific Method

• An experience driven approach to understand behaviour

1. Identify the problem

2. Gather information

3. Generate a hypothesis

4. Design and conduct experiments

5. Analyze date and formulate conclusions

6. Restart the process

Hypothesis = To predict the outcome of an experiment or research study

Descriptive Methods

• Means to capture, report, record, or otherwise describe a group

This usually identifying “what is” without knowing “why it is”

There are 4 main methods to describe groups

1. Naturalistic Observation - Observation of behaviour as it happens in its natural environment, with no attempt to manipulate or control the conditions of the observation. Disadvantaged of this, researches lack control on the environment and the many different factors that can affect behaviour of those being observed

2. Participant Observation - The researcher becomes part of the group being researched. Disadvantages of this are a low degree of reliability , the observations made are reliant on the unique conditions participation. Everyones experience is different

3. Case Studies - An in depth analysis of a unique circumstance or individual. The challenge is that it is very hard to generalize findings from unique case due to is being based on one person or one group of people

4. Surveys - An efficient way to gather information from a large group of people to get an understanding of the current state of peoples opinions or attitudes

Research Ethics for Human Participants

The standards of behaviour in a research study are referred to as “Research Ethics”

These standards were developed by the American Psychological Association (APA)

• Principal A: Benefice and Non-malefience

  • The research should strive to do good, but in no way cause greater harm

• Principal B: Fidelity and Responsibility

  • The researchers must maintain an honest front and be reliable

• Principal C: Integrity

  • States that psychologists should engage in accurate, honest, and non biased practices in the science, teaching and practice of psychology

• Principal D: Justice

  • The strive to establish equality in the research process. Those who participate in the research process should also be the same people who stand to benefit from the research outcomes

  • Age - Inclusion criterion

  • Attributes that would prevent participation - Exclusion Criteria

  • Set of Characteristics shared by all participants - Eligibility Criteria

• Principal E: Respect for peoples rights and dignity

  • Each person should be valued in the research process and the researchers should take measures to respect and protect participants rights, privacy, and welfare

Practice of Ethical Research

• The proposed study will use sound research design

• Risks associated with participation in the study are minimized and reasonable

• The benefits of the research outweigh any potential risks

• All participants can make an informed decision to participate in the study, and that decision may be withdrawn at anytime with our consequence to the participant

• Safeguards are in place to protect the wellbeing of participants

• All data collected will be kept private and confidential

All researchers must obtain Informed Consent from all participants

Special Ethical Considerations

• Vulnerable Populations - Populations who may not be able to provide free and informed consent

Decisional Impairment - Any instance when a potential participant has diminished capacity to provide informed consent

• e.g children and the mentally disabled who do not understand their rights as a participant or the risks that could be associated with said research

Situational Impairment - The freedom of choice to participate in research is compromised as a result of under influence from another source.

• e.g military personnel and prisoners who may feel coerced or obligated to participate in research out of fear of being punished if they do not

In order to protect the vulnerable populations the researchers should consider the following

• No study should ever be conducted on vulnerable populations if then research question could be reasonably carried out using participants without these vulnerabilities

• When research is carried out with vulnerable populations, researcher should be responsive to the needs, conditions, and priorities of these individuals. IRB committees should include members with expertise on these populations

• In instances of decisional impairment, consent to participate in the research process requires that 2 types of consent are acquired: parents and guardians must provide informed consent on behalf of participants and the participant MUST provide assent (affirmative permission to take part in the study)

• In cases of situational vulnerability, additional safeguards should be put in place to prevent exploitation. For instance, s study may include an impartial third party to advocate for the individuals who might not otherwise not fee comfortable doing so.

Deception

In order for a researcher to obtain consent from the IRB to perform deception to a participant they must meet these 4 requirement s

1. The research poses no more than a minimal risk to participants. This meaning that the research is unlikely to cause emotional or physical discomfort to participants

2. The deception does not affect the week-being and the rights of the participant during the study

3. Researchers must provide justification that using deception is the only way to conduct the study. There should be n other reasonable alternative approach to addressing the research question

4. After the participants role in the study is finished, participants should be debriefed by researchers and provided with information about what the researcher was investigating and how their participation will contribute to the research question

Milgrams Conformity Experiment - Example of Research Deception

• 1961, experiment to test how far people would go tp obey an instruction provided by an authority figure

• teachers would have to provide a shock to the student for every wrong answer and increase the voltage each time from 15 volts all the way to 450 volts

• (no shocks were actually applied but the person responsible were not aware of this and thought that the people were in pain due to the shock)

• Study showed that 100% of the participants delivered shocks up to 300 volts and 65% all the way up the the dangerous 450 volts

• Thus proving that obedience was very common but this could not have been proven without the idea of deception because the people being shocked would have been severely harmed

Correlation

• One way to quantify a relationship between two or more variables is through correlation

Some ways to reorient this relationship is a scatterplot

Direction of Correlation

• Positive - the variable change in the same direction, as one variable increases the other does as well

• Negative - The variable change in opposite directions, as one variable increases the other will decrease

• Zero - No apparent relationship between variables

Strength of Correlation

The value of correlation coefficient ranges from -1 to +1

Correlation Can be Misleading

Just because 2 variable are related does not mean we know why

The major purpose of correlational research is to identify the relationship between two variables

Experimental Methods

• The hypothesis - A prediction about what will happen in research, the experiment is used to directly link ideas within a cause - and - effect relationship

A hypothesis should have the following characteristics

• It should be consistent with prior observations or an existing theory

• It should be as simple as possible

• It should be specific

• It should be testable

• The hypothesis should be falsifiable

Experimental variables

An independent variable is the variable that the experimenter will manipulate, and it MUSY contain at least 2 levels

The Dependant Variable, or outcome is the variable the experimenter counts or measures

Extraneous Variable (confounding variables) are any variable that are not the focus of the study, but that may influence the outcome of research if not controlled

Sample Selection

• Experimental Group - Receives the treatment

• Control Group - Teated nearly identically but would not receive the “drug”

A simple random sample - the type of sampling where every individual in the population has an equal chance of participating.

• advantage - if large enough, it should approximate the larger population we wish to study

A stratified random sample - There are two or more identifiable subgroups in the population

• Advantage - This ensures equal numbers all represented in the sample

Non - Random Sample - Not all individuals are equally likely to participate, a group of individuals that are only selected because of a pre -existing condition, convenience, or easy access to participation

Internal Validity and External Validity

Internal - The degree to which results may be attributed to the independent variable rather than some other effect of our experiment.. Was the experiment done “right”

External - The degree to which a result can be applied beyond the scope of the experiment… Do the results apply in the real world

Making sense of the Hypothesis - Is there a difference between groups? Do the results support the hypothesis? Can we conclude there is a cause and effect relationship?

Describing Data - Central Tendency

A single point to describe the centre of data

• The Mean (average score)

• Median (the middle score in an ordered set of data)

• Mode (The most frequent)

Describing Data - Spread of Data

• Variance ( the average of the squared deviation scores)