Documenti di Didattica
Documenti di Professioni
Documenti di Cultura
Psychology and
Everyday Life
Research Methods
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Overview
Challenges,
adjustment, and growth
Research methods
Descriptive research
Experimental research
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Definition
Psychology and everyday life is the
scientific study of mental processes and
behaviors in relation to challenges,
adjustment, and growth in daily lives
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Student shock
The effects of an overwhelming number of
challenges in life to an extent that they feel
they have been pushed to grow up or take
on too much responsibility too fast
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Adjustment
Adjustment is the processes by which
people respond to environmental
pressures and to meet the demands of
challenges
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Multitasking
Do you think that people who multitask
are more efficient than those of us who
focus on a single activity at one time?
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Multitasking
Divided attention
Phone
Conversation
Traffic
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Multitasking
People engage in sequential processing rather
than simultaneous processing
Time is lost when people switched repeatedly
between tasks especially when the tasks are
complex
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An exception…..
We can multitask efficiently and
engage in simultaneous processing
when one of the tasks is a well
practiced skill
Indeed, we perform well practiced skill
better when we are distracted than
when we focus our attention entirely on
it!
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Growth
People are not merely reactors to their
environments. People are also actors who
influence their surroundings. We act upon
the environment to meet our needs and
pursue our goals.
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Correlational Study
Research in which the relationship between two
variables is examined to determine whether they are
associated, or correlated
Examples
Wealth and happiness
High school grades and university GPA
Interview performance and job performance
IQ and work salary
Time watching violent TV programs per week and
frequency of physical fights at school
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Correlational Study
Determine the direction and magnitude
of association among variables
Direction : positive or negative correlation
Strength: -1------ 0 ------ +1
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Correlational Study
Positive correlation
As the value of one variable increases, the
value of the other variable will also increase
Highs with highs, lows with lows
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income happiness 10
5000 3
happiness 8
20000 4 6
60000 7 4
100000 9 2
130000 10 0
0 50000 100000 150000
income
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Correlational Study
Negative correlation
As the value of one variable increases, the
value of the other variable will decrease
Highs with lows, lows with highs
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income happiness 10
8
happiness
5000 10
20000 9 6
60000 7 4
100000 4 2
130000 3 0
0 50000 100000 150000
income
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Correlational Study
Strength of
correlation
Strength: correlation
coefficient (r) range from
0 to ± 1
r = +/- 1: perfect
correlation
r = +/- 0.5: some
correlation
r = 0: no correlation
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Correlational Study
Interpreting correlation
Correlation ≠ causal relationship
Imagine you found a positive correlation
(e.g., r = 0.7) between wealth and
happiness
What does that mean?
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Money Happiness
Interpreting correlation
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Correlational Study
How would you interpret these findings?
A positive correlation between Facebook
usage and depression
A positive correlation between ice-cream
sales and violent crimes
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Survey Study
Research in which people chosen to represent
a larger population are asked a series of
questions about their behavior, thoughts, or
attitudes
Population: a complete group of organisms or
events
Sample: part of a population selected for
research
Surveys are often administered to samples and
then the results are generalized to the larger
population.
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Survey Study
Advantage
The behaviors, thoughts, or attitudes of
a large population can be inferred
Disadvantage
Socialdesirability effect
The sample may not be representative
Random Sampling: A sample is drawn such
that every member of a population has an
equal chance of being selected.
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Naturalistic Observation
Research in which an investigator simply
observes some naturally occurring
behavior and does not make a change in
the situation
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Naturalistic Observation
Doing nothing
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Naturalistic Observation
Advantage
People are assumed to behave naturally in
their natural environment
Disadvantage
The target behavior may not occur
naturally
No causal relationships can be drawn
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Case Study
An in-depth, intensive investigation of an
individual or small group of people
Case Study
Advantages
Flexibility
Researchers is free to explore avenues of
inquiry that arise during the course of the
study
Provides detailed account of the case’s
behavior, emotions, and thinking
Disadvantages
May not generalize to others
Cannot establish cause and effect
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Experimental Research
Research which can examine cause-
effect relationships by deliberately
producing a change in one variable in a
situation and observing the effects of the
change on another variable in the
situation
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Experimental Research
Researchers manipulate the causal
variable (independent variable) and
observe its effect on the effect variable
(dependent variable)
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Experimental Research
Independent Variable (IV): a variable
that an experimenter manipulates
Alcohol
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Experimental Research
Experimental
Group: A group of subjects
who receive a treatment (independent
variable)
Control
Group: A group of subjects
whose members don’t receive the
treatment, while other conditions are held
constant
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IV DV
Manipulation
Experimental Alcohol
Any difference?
Tonic
Control
Water
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Experimental Research
Core logic
The experimental condition and the control
condition should be identical in all respects
(e.g., participant characteristics, room
temperature) except the IV, so that we can
single out the IV as the cause
If this cannot be assured, then there are
alternative explanations for the observed
difference in the DV
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Experimental Research
• Random assignment to condition
A procedure in which participants are
assigned to different conditions on the basis
on chance and chance alone
Aim: to weed out preexisting group
differences
Equivalence between the experimental
condition and the control condition in terms
of participant characteristics can be assumed
thereby
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An illustration
OurDark Hearts: The Stanford Prison
Experiment
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Recruitment
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Random assignment
• Two Roles: Prisoner & Guard
• Role determined randomly by flipping a
coin
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Finger-printed and
placed in holding cell
Searched, stripped
naked
Dressed in a smock
with no underclothes
Given ID numbers and
were forbidden to use
names
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Humiliation
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Exerting control
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Rebellion
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Breakdown
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Required Reading
Ch. 1