Psychology is a
scientific discipline
that relies on the
scientific method
in order to address questions
about behavior, thinking,
and emotion.
In this video, I am
just going to summarize
some of the general
steps that are involved
in the scientific method.
We use them in
psychology, and they're
used in pretty much any
other scientific discipline.
So the first step to
any kind of research
is of course coming
up with a question--
coming up with some kind
of interesting research
question that you
want to investigate.
Now, you may get this question
or this area of interest
by looking at previous
theory in a particular area,
observations that you've
experienced in your day-to-day
life--
things you've see in
the world around you
may provide motivation to test
out a certain idea, or just
your belief system.
All of these
different influences
can impact the kinds of
questions that we ask
and the kinds of questions
that we research as a society.
Once we have our question, we
then want to form a hypothesis,
and a hypothesis is just a
fancy word for a prediction.
We want to make a
specific prediction
or a set of
predictions about how
we expect events or phenomena
to work or interact.
So we want to reframe our
research question in a way
that makes it
testable and that we
can use research steps in
order to either show support
for that idea or possibly
disprove that idea.
The next step is to actually
take that prediction
and hypothesis and test it.
Now, there are a variety of ways
to test a research hypothesis.
We could do it in a
lab, we could do it out
in the community or
in the real world,
we could do it online,
through surveys.
There's all sorts of ways
to test research hypotheses.
And in this chapter,
you're going
to learn about the
different techniques
we have for observing,
measuring behavior.
Once we collect our data, we're
going to draw conclusions.
We're going to use statistical
techniques in order
to decide whether or not
our hypothesis was supported
by the data.
Maybe the results
support the hypothesis
and we can be more
confident that it's valid.
But perhaps the results
don't support our hypothesis.
Maybe we have to go back
and fine tune the way
we're thinking
about our prediction
and whatever phenomena
we're looking at.
So let's look at
an example here.
Let's think of a
research question that
could be something of interest.
In class, we posed the
idea that social media use
may have an impact on our
anxiety and depression.
So perhaps you're interested in
how social media is impacting
mental health of young people.
Well, we could form a hypothesis
based on previous research
that more time spent
using social media--
things like Instagram,
Facebook, Twitter--
is associated with
poorer mental health--
more symptoms of anxiety,
more symptoms of depression.
So the more time one spends
on these social media outlets,
the more symptoms of
anxiety and depression
we expect, given
that hypothesis.
Now, that hypothesis may
be correct or incorrect.
It is possible that more social
media use has a positive impact
on mental health.
This is the whole reason
of doing the study.
We're going to let the
data speak for themselves.
Now we're going to go
ahead and gather evidence.
We may test this idea
using survey research.
We may use some kind
of experimental setup
to test this prediction.
And again, you want to be
familiar with the various ways
of testing research
predictions that you're
learning about in this chapter.
So maybe I run some
kind of experiment
where I expose a group of people
to social media for two weeks
and I assess their anxiety
and their depression,
and then for the next two weeks
I pull them off of social media
to see if there's any drop in
their anxiety and depression.
That would be an example
of an experiment,
and I could use the results
to draw a conclusion--
OK, it looks like when we
pulled that group of individuals
off of social media that their
anxiety and depressive symptoms
reduced, or maybe they went up.
Either way, we'd be able to make
some kind of comparison there.
So this is just an
overview of the steps
of the scientific method.
You would be using these
steps to investigate any kind
of question you have
in the sciences--
psychology is not an exception--
and you should be
familiar with these steps.
I'll see you in the next video.
