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The Scientific
Method

Science Source/Colorization by: Mary Martin

Empiricism: Belief that accurate
knowledge can be acquired
through observation; essential
element in scientific method

Scientific method: Set of

principles about the appropriate
relationship between ideas and
evidence Ibn al-Haytham (965–1039)
Empiricism: How to Know Stuff

• Theory: Hypothetical explanation of a natural

phenomena
• Rule of parsimony: Simplest theory that
explains all the evidence is the best one
• Hypothesis: Falsifiable prediction made by a
theory
What is the scientific method?
Why can theories be proven wrong but not right?
The Art of Looking

• Empirical method:
Set of rules and
techniques for
observation
• People are difficult to
study because of
complexity,
variability, and Eadweard Muybridge/Corbis

reactivity
• Methods of
observation and
methods of
explanation must be Frames 2 and 3 of this historic photo
used by Eadweard Muybridge (1830–
1904) show that horses can indeed
fly, albeit briefly and only in coach.
What makes human beings especially difficult to
study?
Observation: Discovering What People Do

• Observe: Use one’s senses to learn about the

properties of an event or an object
Steps in the Measurement of a Property

Measurement requires defining the property to

be measured and finding a way to detect it
Operational definition: Description of a property in
concrete, measurable terms
Measurement

• Measure: Device that can detect the condition to

which an operational definition refers
– Validity: Extent to which a measurement and a
property are conceptually related
– Reliability: Tendency for a measure to produce the
same measurement whenever it is used to measure
the same thing
– Power: Ability of a measure to detect the concrete
conditions specified in the operational definition
What two things does measurement require?
What are the properties of a good operational
definition and a good instrument?
Demand
Characteristics
and Observer
Bias

Rex Features via AP Photo

Demand characteristics: Those
aspects of an observational setting
that cause people to behave as they
think they should
Are most people prejudiced against people with disabilities?
People rarely admit to being prejudiced when asked, and they generally
won’t behave in prejudiced ways if someone is watching.
So how could you measure prejudice in a way that minimized demand
characteristics?
Demand Characteristics and Observer Bias

• Naturalistic observation: Technique for

gathering scientific information by unobtrusively
observing people in their natural environments
• Observer bias: Expectations can influence
observations and influence perceptions of reality
• Double-blind: Observation whose true purpose
is hidden from both the observer and the person
being observed
Expectations

• People’s expectations can

cause the phenomena they
expect.

• In 1929, investors who

expected the stock market to
collapse sold their stocks and
thereby caused the very crisis
they feared.

Bettmann/Corbis
• In this photo, panicked citizens
stand outside the New York
Stock Exchange the day after
the crash, which the New York
Times attributed to “mob
psychology.”
How do people respond when they know they’re
being observed?
Why is it important for subjects to be “blind”?
Why is it important for experimenters to be
“blind”?
• Best place to fall on your face – Rio de
Janeiro!
• Students used naturalistic observation to study
helping behaviors.
• Confederate was pretending to be either blind
or injured while crossing the street.
• Latin American cities were ranked most helpful;
watch out if you go to Kuala Lampur, Malaysia.
Frequency distribution: Graphical representation of measurements
arranged by the number of times each measurement was made

This graph shows how a hypothetical group of men and women scored
on a test of fine motor skills

Test scores are listed along the horizontal axis, and the frequency with
which each score was obtained is represented along the vertical axis
Descriptions and Graphic Representations

• Graphic representations describe data

– Normal distribution: Mathematically defined frequency
distribution in which most measurements are
concentrated around the middle
– Skewed distributions: Non-normal (positive or
negative skew)
What is a frequency distribution?
Descriptive Statistics

• Descriptive statistics are brief summary

statements about a frequency distribution.
– Central tendency (center or midpoint)
• Mode: Value of the most frequently observed measurement
• Mean: Average value of all the measurements
• Median: Value that is in the middle
– Variability (extent measurements differ)
• Range: Value of the largest measurement in a frequency
distribution minus the value of the smallest measurement
• Standard deviation: Statistic that describes the average
difference between the measurements in a frequency
distribution and the mean of that distribution
Descriptive Statistics

Two Kinds of
Descriptive
Statistics Descriptive
statistics are used o
describe two important
features of a
frequency distribution:
central tendency
(where do most of the
scores lie?) and
variability (how much
do the scores differ
from one another?).
Descriptive Statistics
Some Descriptive
Statistics
This frequency
distribution shows
the scores of 15
individuals on a 7-
point test.
Descriptive statistics
include measures
of central tendency
(such as the mean,
median, and mode)
and measures of
variability (such as
the range and the
standard deviation).
Descriptive Statistics

Skewed Distributions
When a frequency distribution is normal (a), the mean, median, and
mode are all the same, but when it is positively skewed (b) or
negatively skewed (c), these three measures of central tendency are
quite different.
What does this tell you about IQ of men and
women?
What are the two major kinds of descriptive
statistics?
What are two measures of variability?
Explanation: Discovering Why People Do
What They Do
• Ultimate goal of scientific research
– Discovery of causal relationships between properties
– Study of patterns of variation in a series of
measurements
• Variable: Property whose value can vary across
individuals or over time
Hypothetical Data Showing the
Relationship between Sleep and Memory
How can we tell if two variables are correlated?
Correlation

• Correlation: Two variables are said to be

correlated when variations in the value of one
variable are synchronized with variations in the
value of the other
– Positive correlation: both variables increase or
decrease together
– Negative correlation: as one variable increases, the
other decreases
Correlation

• Correlation coefficient: Measure of the

direction and strength of a correlation (r)
• r ranges
-1.0 (perfect negative correlation)
+1.0 (perfect positive correlation)
0 as no correlation

Let’s take a closer look.

Three Kinds of Correlations
Positive Correlations of Different Strengths
 Correlations

• Researchers have
found a positive
correlation between
mental illness and
smoking.

• Can you think of three

reasons why this
correlation might exist?
Thinkstock
What’s the difference between a positive and a
negative correlation?
How can correlations be measured?
What does it mean for a correlation to be strong?
Causation

• Sometimes we see causal relationships that

do not actually exist.
– Natural correlations: Correlation observed in the world
around us
– Third variable problem: Fact that a causal relationship
between two variables cannot be inferred from the
naturally occurring correlation between them because
of the ever-present possibility of third variable
correlation
 Causes of Correlation

If X (exposure to media violence) and Y aggressiveness) are

correlated, then there are at least three possible explanations:
X causes Y, Y causes X, or Z (some other factor, such as lack of
adult supervision) causes both Y and X, neither of which causes
the other.
Causation

• Third-variable correlation: Fact that two

variables are correlated only because each is
causally related to a third variable
– Matched samples: Technique whereby the
participants in two groups are identical in terms of a
third variable
– Matched pairs: Technique whereby each participant is
identical to one other participant in terms of a third
variable
 Matched Sample and Pairs

Photos © Photodisc
Both the matched samples technique (left) and the matched pairs
technique (right) ensure that children in the exposure and no-exposure
groups have the same amount of adult supervision on average, and
thus any differences we observe between the groups can’t be due to
differences in adult supervision.
Why can’t we use natural correlations to infer
causality?
What is third-variable correlation?
What’s the difference between matched samples
and matched pairs?
Experimentation

• Experiment: Technique for establishing the

causal relationship between variables
• Manipulation: Creation of an artificial pattern of
variation in a variable in order to determine its
causal powers
– Independent variable: Variable that is manipulated in
an experiment
– Dependent variable: Variable that is measured in a
study
Experimentation: Where Should You Put the
Button on a Web Page?
Experimentation

• Random assignment: Procedure that uses a

random event to assign people to the
experimental or control group
– Experimental group: Group of people who are treated
in a particular way in an experiment
– Control group: Group of people who are not treated in
the particular way that the experimental group is
treated in an experiment
• Self-selection: Problem that occurs when anything about a
person determines whether he or she will be included in the
experimental or control group
Manipulation
The independent variable is exposure to media violence and the dependent
variable is aggression. Manipulation of the independent variable results in an
experimental group and a control group.
When we compare the behavior of participants in these two groups, we are
actually computing the correlation between the independent variable and the
dependent variable.
Random Assignment
Children with adult supervision are shown in orange and those
without adult supervision are shown in blue. The independent
variable is exposure to media violence and the dependent variable
is aggression.
What are the benefits of random assignment in this experiment?
What are the two main features of an experiment?
What are the three main steps in doing an
experiment?
Why can’t we allow people to select the condition
of the experiment in which they will participate?
Why is random assignment so useful and
important?
ODDSLY ENOUGH
• A recent Gallup survey found that 53% of
college graduates believe in extrasensory
perception (ESP).
– People routinely underestimate the likelihood of
coincidences by not using probability theory.

If you want to know more about how to use this

information, check out page 61 in your text.
Drawing Conclusions

• Statistical significance
– Determined when we calculate the odds that random
assignment as failed, through inferential statistics
– Not accepted unless that chance is less than 5% (p <
.05)
Drawing Conclusions
Why is external validity not always important?
Representative People

• In an experiment, a researcher cannot

observe an entire population, so instead
draws a sample.
– Population: Complete collection of participants who
might possibly be measured
– Sample: Partial collection of people drawn from a
population
Representative People

• Case method: Method of gathering scientific

knowledge by studying a single individual
– Random sampling: Technique for choosing
participants that ensures that every member of a
population has an equal chance of being included in
the sample
Representative
People
• Case method: Method
of gathering scientific
– Non-random sampling:
Acceptable technique if
the similarity between a
sample and the

AP Photo/Sony,Bill Phelps
population doesn’t
matter, when replication
is available, and if the
similarity between the Cases such like that dealing with
two is reasonable enough child prodigy Jay Greenburg are
interesting in their own right, but
they also provide important insights
into how the rest of us work.
Nonrandom
sampling can
lead to errors.

Ullstein Bild / The Granger Collection

REUTERS/Jim Young
In the presidential election of 1948, the Chicago Tribune mistakenly
predicted that Thomas Dewey would beat Harry Truman. Why?
Because polling was done by telephone, and Dewey Republicans were
more likely to have telephones than were Truman Democrats.
In the presidential election of 2004, exit polls mistakenly predicted that
John Kerry would beat George Bush. Why? Because polling was done
by soliciting voters as they left the polls, and Kerry supporters were
more willing to stop and talk.
DO VIOLENT MOVIES MAKE
PEACEFUL STREETS?
• Studies have previously shown
a relationship between media
violence and aggression.
• However, when economists ran
a correlation, they found that on
evenings when more people
went to the theater to watch
violent movies, there were fewer
violent crimes committed
(negative correlation).
– Are more violent people attracted

Miramax/Photofest
to violent movies (and thus can’t be
busy committing crimes if they are
watching a violent movie)?
What is the difference between a population and a
sample?
What is good about random sampling?
Why is the failure to sample randomly not always
a problem?
 Thinking Critically of
Evidence
• Critical thinking:
Involves asking tough
questions about whether
evidence has been

Stock Montage/Getty Images

interpreted in an
unbiased way, and about
whether the evidence
Sir Francis Bacon (1561–1626) tells not just the truth, but
“The human understanding, once it
the whole truth
has adopted opinions... draws
everything else to support and
agree with them…”
Thinking Critically of Evidence

• Why do people have so much trouble

thinking critically?
• Natural and intuitive way of thinking about evidence
worked better for hunter gathers than for people living in
today’s large-scale, complex societies
– We see what we expect and want
– We consider what we see and ignore what we don’t
The Ethics of Science: First, Do No Harm

• Psychologists go to great lengths to protect

the well-being of research participants and
are bound by a code of ethics
– Respect for persons, research should be beneficent,
research should be just
• Ethical reporting of data and approval from
Institutional Review Boards necessary
– Must report truthfully, share credit, and share data
The Ethics of Science: First, Do No Harm

• APA code of ethics

– Informed consent
– Freedom from coercion
– Protection from harm
– Risk-benefit analysis
– Deception
– Debriefing
– Confidentiality
What are the three features of ethical research?
What are psychologists expected to do when they
report the results of their research?
Respecting Animals

• All procedures involving

animals must be
supervised by trained
psychologists.
• Discomfort and pain

PAUL MCERLANE/ Reuters/ Corbis

must be minimized.
– Only when alternative
procedure is unavailable
or justified by value
– Anesthesia used when
available (if surgical
procedures used)
What steps must psychologists take to protect
nonhuman subjects?
Respecting Truth

• Psychology, like all sciences, works on the

honor system.
– Results are reported truthfully on what was done and
what was found
– Credit is ethically assigned
– Data are shared
CAN WE AFFORD SCIENCE?
• Taxpayer dollars fund much psychological science
• Brooks argues that this research is an investment
that pays for itself
– Many past policies were based on overly simplistic
views of human nature
– Policies are best designed around current
knowledge of people and contexts

Reread the last section of this chapter one more time.

Can you find examples that support Brooks’
statement?