- [Voiceover] This
lecture will introduce you
to the scientific method,
Which is the general
approach that research
scientists use to evaluate
the world around them.
This method is what distinguishes
the field of psychology from other fields
that ask similar questions about
human nature, such as philosophy.
In our modern world you're constantly
presented with scientific findings.
This could be through courses
you take, through friends,
or when watching TV or
surfing the internet.
Here I have developed a
hypothetical advertisement
similar to many you
have likely seen before.
My new miracle weight
loss formula Full-A-Vit
is designed to convince
your body that you're full,
leading to less eating.
It is made with all natural ingredients.
My evaluation of the supplement found that
individuals taking the pill
along with three healthy meals
and exercise lost an average
of two pounds a week.
Are you convinced?
I have the scientific
evidence to back me up.
Let's assume I did the research honestly
and actually found that people did lose
an average of two pounds
a week with taking
the pill along with a
balanced diet and exercise.
Can we conclude that my pill
helps people lose weight?
Why or why not?
If you said false, you are correct.
The loss in weight may
have been due to the pill,
it could also have been due to
the healthy diet or exercise.
Or it could've been a combination of two
or even all three of these factors.
This lecture and the others on methodology
will help to train you to be able to
evaluate research more critically,
which is a great skill for laypeople
as well as for researchers.
One of the characteristics
that distinguish
psychologists from laypeople is
the use of scientific
inquiry to answer questions.
Scientific inquiry is a way
of finding answers to empirical questions,
questions that can be answered
through observation and measurement.
Using the scientific method,
which is a set of systematic procedures
for observing and measuring
phenomena to answer questions.
For example, both
laypeople and psychologists
may be interested in why
good people do bad things.
However, psychologists
will develop studies
to systematically test this question.
Another important characteristic that
scientists develop, and you
will begin to develop this term,
is the scientific attitude.
The scientific attitude
is composed of curiosity,
skepticism, and humility.
And each of these characteristics
is helpful in doing scientific research.
Curiosity is important of course,
because we want to have questions
about why the world works,
specifically why people
do the things they do,
or think the way they think,
or feel the way they feel.
Skepticism is important
because you don't want
to always go with the first answer
or automatically believe that
the existing theories are correct.
You want to uncover the
truth like a detective.
Humility is important because your ideas
about human behavior
will not always be right,
and you have to be willing
to accept the evidence
and adjust your ideas and theories.
So how do psychologists go about asking
and answering the questions
they have about the world?
As like all scientists, we
use the scientific method.
We construct theories
that help us to organize,
summarize, and simplify the complex
observations of the world around us.
These theories can then be used to develop
new questions or hypotheses
about why the world works the way it does,
and then help us to organize
and develop our research plan.
There are four major goals
of psychological research:
to describe, predict, control and explain.
First you want to be able to describe
what your phenomenon is.
For example, perhaps you're
interested in physical attraction.
What does it look like?
What are the behaviors
that are involved when
people are attracted to each other?
What are the thoughts they think
about the other person and themselves?
And how do they feel?
Next, you want to be able to predict
when your phenomenon is more
or less likely to occur.
For example, what factors are likely
to increase attraction between people?
One hypothesis is that people are
more attracted to people
that are familiar to them.
So the next step would be to control
or create a study that
tests you hypothesis.
Using the hypothesis that
familiarity increases attraction,
what is the face that
is most familiar to us?
Well, it would be our own.
We see it in the mirror and it also shares
many features with our close
family, who we see most often.
So we could develop a study to see how
features similar to our
own increase attraction.
In fact, there have been studies
that have done just this.
One study examining the
attraction of heterosexual men
showed them photos that
were morphs of 20 faces,
half of which were unfamiliar female faces
and half of which included their own face
invisibly morphed with the female faces.
The men rated the pictures with
the faces that included
their own as more attractive.
And post-test they were asked
if they detected anything unusual.
And they were not able to detect
the presence of their own face.
The final goal is to
explain this difference.
The way the researchers in the example
I just discussed explained it was that
the familiarity and similarity
of their own features
that were invisible in the photograph
were more attractive to them
and increased their attraction
towards the female faces.
There are five basic steps
to the scientific method.
The first is to hypothesize,
then to operationalize,
then to measure, then to evaluate,
and finally to replicate,
revise and report.
A handy acronym to remember
these steps is H.O.M.E.R.
We will define and discuss
these steps shortly.
So what exactly is a theory?
As mentioned earlier, theories allow us
to organize and summarize
a large body of research.
It allows us to classify studies
under a particular theoretical framework.
It also allows us to quickly evaluate
the state of the field and generate
new hypotheses for additional research.
One theory we will discuss
as an example of the
process of research is that
low self-esteem is a factor
that contributes to depression.
Typically theories have
been built up over time.
They involve multiple hypotheses
and multiple tests of these hypotheses
that demonstrate consistent findings.
A hypothesis is a testable question,
one that may be prompted
from an existing theory,
or multiple hypotheses may be
combined to develop a new theory.
So one testable hypothesis
involving self-esteem
and depression is that people
who show low self-esteem
are apt to show more depression.
Since many of the variable
psychologists are interested in
are not directly observable,
we need to operationalize them.
These internal
characteristics that cannot be
directly observed are called constructs.
Both depression and self-esteem
are not directly observable
so we will need to operationally define
what each of them are.
This operational definition identifies how
we will measure our
internal characteristics
using external behaviors.
For example, depression
is often measured by
external behaviors such as affect,
or decreases in activity and interest.
This operational definition is then used
to develop the measurement and assessments
that will be used by the researchers.
Now that we've developed our hypothesis,
and operationally defined the variables,
we need to collect the data.
The methods we use to collect
these research observations
will depend on what type
of study we are using,
which we will discuss later in lecture.
For the sake of our
current example we will
give two self-report assessments.
One of self-esteem and one of depression.
To examine it, people with low self-esteem
tend to also have more
depressive symptoms.
Here's a flow chart of
the research process
from observations of behavior
to a developed theory.
We will go through each individually.
For this example, we will use the theory
that frustration often
leads to aggression.
You've probably heard the
tale that Sir Issac Newton
developed the theory of
gravity after observing an
apple falling from a tree.
Many individual studies and theories start
with an observation of
the world around us.
Another example could
be you noticed children
on a playground start to push and shove
more often when they are made to wait.
For example, you see that
when a child at the top
of the slide is taking too long
the kids right at the bottom of the ladder
are more aggressive than the
kids further back in line.
This may lead you to the
hypothesis that frustration
leads to an increased
likelihood of aggression.
You may then want to
move beyond describing
the behaviors to testing
and explaining them,
so you will need to develop a study.
Before you conduct the study,
you will need to operationally define
both aggression and frustration.
We could limit aggression
to only physical aggression,
however then, what is physical aggression?
A simple definition would be
physical actions with the
intention to cause harm.
Then you would need to specify
exactly what those actions are.
You would then do the
same with frustration.
You would then conduct your test
of frustration and aggression.
For example, you could design a study that
frustrates a subset of students
and doesn't frustrate another subset,
and then see if they behave differently.
One study did this.
Researchers asked a sample of
elementary school students
what their favorite toys were.
The next day they returned
and let the students know
that they had collected the toys
and that each student
would have 10 minutes
to play with the toys
individually in another room.
Throughout the day the researchers took
each student to the room
where the toys were.
Upon arriving at the room they found
that the room was locked.
For half the students the
researcher had the key
and they were let in immediately.
For the other half, the
researchers said they
had to go get the key from another room
and to wait at the door for their return.
These students that stayed at the door
were there looking through
the glass at the room beyond,
which contained all the
toys they liked best.
They had to wait a few minutes,
thinking about how great it would be,
but frustrated that their
time in the room was slowly passing
and they were not playing.
Eventually the researcher
returned and let them in.
The difference in waiting or not waiting
was the manipulation of frustration.
Half of the students were frustrated
and the others were not.
The students in both groups
were then given the same time
to play with the toys by themselves.
The measure of aggression was
how the students played with their toys.
The students who were
frustrated engaged in
more aggressive play styles,
crashing cars together, throwing toys,
and other aggressive behaviors.
This test demonstrated that frustration,
the only thing that
differed between the groups,
lead to more aggression.
The findings from this study can then
be used to generate and
support a new theory,
or add to or adapt an existing theory.
If the findings are consistent
with an existing theory,
this theory then can lead researchers
to looking for more
examples in the real world,
or generating new hypotheses and studies.
If the findings are not consistent
with with an existing theory,
additional work needs to be
done to explain the findings,
often leading to additional
hypotheses and studies.
As you can see, research is circular
with observations leading to hypotheses
leading to studies leading to theory.
However, theories can
also lead to observations
and additional hypotheses.
The field of psychology is ever-changing,
with new hypotheses, studies, and theories
improving on understanding
of human behaviors, thoughts and emotions.
This is why even when our findings do not
support our hypotheses or theories,
we can uncover new and
interesting possibilities.
This is why humility is an important part
of the scientific attitude.
We need to be open to the possibility that
our beliefs about how humans
behave could be flawed,
or need further exploration.
Then we will be prepared to recognize
the importance of even
unexpected findings.
