Why Psychologists Conduct Research

Think about how you know the things you know. How do you know the earth is round? How do you know it
is September? How do you know that terrorist threats are increasing around the world? There are probably
many ways that you know these things. In some cases, you may know things because you used your intuition
or previous knowledge to deduce these facts. For example, you may know from past experience that where you
live, in the month of September, days tend to be warm but start to get cooler, especially at night. Therefore,
remembering the characteristics of the weather you are experiencing, and knowing you are still living in the
same location as past years, you can deduce that the month is September from your knowledge base. You may
have first learned that the earth is round from an authority figure like your parents, teachers, or text authors.
You may have also observed that the earth is round by viewing photographs of the earth taken from space.
You may know that terrorist threats are increasing from authority figures as well (e.g., magazine and
newspaper reporters, your country’s leaders’ statements). These are the primary ways that we learn new facts:
intuition, deduction, authority, and observation.

Suppose something occurred that caused you to suspect that the authority figures you have learned these facts
from are not reliable sources of information. Perhaps they have been caught lying about other facts. You
might also consider a situation where you do not have enough previous experience with a topic to use your
intuition to determine the information for yourself. In these situations, what is the best way for you to find the
facts? The answer is observation. If you had reason to believe, for example, that an increase in terrorist threat
is not being represented accurately, you could examine the incidence of terrorist attacks (e.g., from public
records) over a period of time to find out if people are representing the true conditions.

This is why psychologists conduct behavioral research; it is the best way to make certain that the information
they have about behavior is accurate. By conducting careful and systematic observations, they can be certain
that they are getting the most accurate knowledge they can about behavior. This does not mean that every
study conducted will yield accurate results. There are many cases where the observations collected by different
researchers conflict, but this is an important part of the process. Different ways of observing a behavior may
yield different observations and these different observations help us to better understand how behaviors occur.
See Table 1.1 for some examples of the different ways of knowing information.

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Using Science to Understand and Explain Behavior
Observation is really what sets scientific fields apart from other fields of study. Someone who wants to know
about the political situation during the Civil War may read historical documents and use his or her intuition
to describe the situation based on these documents. He or she might also read books by experts (authority
figures) on the Civil War period or books on important figures who lived during that time. However,
historians typically cannot observe the historical event they are studying. Psychologists have an advantage in
that the behavior they want to learn about is happening in humans and other animals in the world around
them. The best way to learn about it is to just observe it.

Some behaviors, such as mental processes, cannot be directly observed (e.g., thoughts or memories). Thus,
psychologists have developed techniques for inferring information about mental processes through observation
of specific behaviors that are affected by the mental processes. Psychologists then attempt to understand
mental processes through observation of these behaviors and the investigation of the factors that influence
those behaviors. That is what this book (and the course you are taking) is all about—understanding the
methods psychologists use to observe, measure, and study behavior and mental processes (Figure 1.1).

Research is the foundation of the field of psychology. Many people think of the helping professions when they
think about what psychologists do. This is because most people with a graduate degree in psychology work in
these helping (or related) professions (American Psychological Association, 2003). However, to do their jobs
well, helping professionals, such as clinicians and counselors, need to understand the findings from research
about behavior so that they know what types of treatments and therapies can best help their clients. The
research studies conducted in psychology also help clinicians and counselors understand what constitutes
“normal” behavior and what behaviors might be considered “abnormal.”

Thinking about the field of biology may help you understand how influential research is in the field of
psychology. In the biological field, there are researchers who investigate the way our bodies react physically to
the world around us (e.g., after being exposed to a virus). This knowledge helps other researchers determine
which drugs may be effective in helping us improve these physical reactions (e.g., reduce our symptoms as we
fight the virus). Finally, the knowledge gained in biological research helps doctors correctly diagnose and treat

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their patients (e.g., what symptoms indicate the presence of a particular virus and which drugs are most
effective in treating these symptoms). The field of psychology works a lot like the field of biology (although
the term psychologist applies to both scientists and practitioners in psychology, sometimes causing confusion).
Some researchers investigate what causes certain types of behaviors (e.g., distraction in people with attention-
deficit/hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD). Other researchers investigate what treatments are effective in
reducing these behaviors (e.g., rewarding someone for staying on task). Finally, some psychologists work with
clients to help them deal with problem behaviors. For example, school psychologists work with teachers and
parents to develop a reward system for students with ADHD who have difficulty completing work in class
because they become easily distracted. The research that investigated the behaviors associated with ADHD
and the factors that can reduce those behaviors was necessary for the school psychologist to be able to develop
an effective treatment plan for the student.

Figure 1.1 Psychologists May Study Communication Differences Between Men and Women by Observing
Their Behavior While They Talk to Each Other

SOURCE: Copyright by Cartoon Stock, http://www.cartoonstock.com.

Intuition: relying on common sense as a means of knowing about the world

Deduction: using logical reasoning and current knowledge as a means of knowing about the world

Authority: relying on a knowledgeable person or group as a means of knowing about the world

Observation: relying on what one observes as a means of knowing about the world

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How Psychologists Use The Scientific Method
Our starting place for conducting research studies in psychology is an understanding of the assumptions that
come along with the methods of science. We need to keep some concepts in mind when we use the scientific
method to understand behavior. As discussed earlier, scientific study requires observations. It is the primary
aspect of the scientific method. However, there are actually four primary facets or canons (i.e., rules or
principles that guide a field of study) that define the scientific method. They are empiricism, determinism,
parsimony, and testability.

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Empiricism
The first canon is empiricism and this is just what we discussed above—that the scientific method relies on
observations. We have several important people to thank for the empirical nature of science. Galileo, for
example, was an influential scientist who used observations to understand the world (Sharratt, 1996). Much of
the learning up to Galileo’s time (1564–1642) had relied on authority figures, such as Aristotle and Plato, and
their ideas about the world to understand how the world worked. However, Galileo (Figure 1.2) and his
contemporaries (e.g., Copernicus, Newton) claimed that to learn how the world works, one should observe it.
When Galileo wanted to understand how our solar system worked, he observed the movement of the planets
around the sun through a telescope, instead of simply accepting the authoritative position held by Aristotle
that the earth was the center of the solar system and everything revolved around it. He made careful,
systematic observations of the phenomena of interest to better understand those phenomena. What we do in
psychology is not very different from what Galileo did. If developmental psychologists want to know about
bullying behaviors in elementary school children, they go out and carefully observe specific playground
behaviors among these children or systematically observe the behaviors of children who have been identified as
bullies.

Why do psychologists observe behavior? Observing behavior gives researchers a more accurate understanding
of the causes of behaviors than other methods of gaining knowledge. Relying on an authority to learn about
behavior, for example, greatly limits our understanding of behaviors across large groups of individuals, because
not all authority figures are equally reliable and some may have faulty information.

How do we use empiricism to learn about behavior? There are many different ways to do this. We can simply
observe people in their normal environment (e.g., children on a playground at recess). We can ask them to
complete a survey (e.g., have the subjects respond to items that help us measure their mood). We can ask
them to come into a lab and complete a task on a computer (e.g., test their memory for different types of
information). Each of these methods allows us to gather empirical measurements of behavior (observation
techniques are discussed further in Chapter 4).

One thing to keep in mind is that one observation (either from one individual or from one study) is never
enough for us to be sure that the knowledge we are gaining is real. Chance factors can cause us to observe a
particular behavior when we observe it only once. Therefore, it is important to replicate our observations, both
across multiple individuals within a study and/or across multiple studies using different sets of subjects and,
oftentimes, different procedures. This replication of results assures researchers that the behaviors they observe
are not just due to chance and can be used to make more confident conclusions about how behavior works.
We will discuss the importance of replication across individuals further in our discussion of sampling in
Chapter 6.

Figure 1.2 Galileo

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Determinism
Another important aspect of the scientific method is the adherence to determinism. This is the concept that
phenomena in the world (and human behaviors) occur naturally and have identifiable causes (in extreme cases,
determinism can indicate a denial of free will). In other words, by conducting studies to observe behavior, we
can understand the factors that cause those behaviors to occur. One goal of psychological research is to be able
to explain behavior by understanding the causes of different types of behavior. For example, why do people get
depressed? What causes false memories? Does sleeplessness cause anxiety? Does anxiety cause sleeplessness?
The assumption of determinism in psychological research is that each of these behaviors (depression, false
memories, anxiety, and insomnia) has a specific cause or set of causes and we can understand these causes
through observation of behavior in different circumstances. For many behaviors studied by psychologists,
multiple causes may affect the behaviors. However, not all research is conducted to directly test causes of
behavior. In some cases, the behavior first must be described and related factors identified. Although these
types of studies do not directly test a cause of behavior, they do contribute to our knowledge of the behavior,
which is one step in the scientific process of understanding its causes. We will discuss the different ways we
conduct psychological studies and the different goals researchers may have in their studies in Chapter 4.

How is determinism used in psychological research? Because the overall goal of research is typically to gain a
better understanding of behavior and its causes, researchers design their studies to contribute to this goal
through the description of behaviors (e.g., How common is anxiety among college freshmen?), through the
identification of factors related to the behaviors (e.g., Are students who are younger in age more anxious their
freshmen year in college than older students?), and through the testing of specific causes of the behaviors (e.g.,
Does technology use in coursework reduce anxiety in college freshmen?).

Determinism: the assumption that phenomena have identifiable causes

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Parsimony
In the 1997 film Contact, Jodie Foster’s character, Dr. Ellie Arroway, attempts to explain her beliefs as a
scientist to Matthew McConaughey’s character, Palmer Joss. She tells him that simpler explanations of the
world are preferred over more complex explanations, particularly if there is no scientific evidence that a
complex explanation is correct. She calls this concept “Occam’s Razor” (after the Franciscan friar who
suggested it as an important part of the scientific method). Parsimony is what Arroway is speaking of when
she talks about the preference for more simple explanations. In psychological research, we develop
explanations of behavior starting with the simplest descriptions and expanding those descriptions only when it
becomes clear that the behavior is more complex than our original description of it. In other words, simple
explanations are preferred. It is assumed that the simpler explanation is more likely to be correct. More
complex explanations should be developed only after simpler explanations have failed to be supported by
research studies.

Why is parsimony useful in psychological research? Parsimony helps scientists test their ideas because it is
easier to develop a study that might falsify a simple explanation than to develop a study that might falsify a
more complex explanation. Falsification is an important part of the research process. This idea is relevant to
the concept of testability as well and will be discussed further in the next section.

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Testability
The fourth canon of science is testability. The scientific method can only be used to examine ideas that can be
tested through observation. The only explanations of behavior that can be tested with the scientific method
are those that can be contradicted with observations of behavior. Why is falsifiability important? It is
important because a test of an explanation of a behavior that allows that explanation to be falsified provides a
stronger test of that explanation. If we look only for evidence to support our explanations of behavior, we are
likely to find that evidence and hold on to those explanations longer even if they are wrong. Seeking only
confirmatory evidence and ignoring contradictory evidence is known as the confirmation bias. If, instead, we
design research studies that can show us behaviors inconsistent with our explanations, we are more likely to
find evidence against them, if such evidence exists. It takes only a few studies with results inconsistent with an
explanation of behavior to falsify it. However, it takes many studies conducted in many different contexts to
produce results consistent with an explanation of behavior to support it.

Testability is one of the reasons that many of Sigmund Freud’s ideas have not had more influence in current
clinical and personality psychology theories—they are difficult to test using the scientific method. For
example, Freud proposed that many of our personality traits are a product of a struggle between constructs of
our minds (id, ego, and superego) that we do not have full conscious access to (Nairne, 2009). It is difficult to
test this theory, because the constructs Freud proposed are difficult to connect to observable behaviors. Thus,
it is difficult to systematically observe behaviors in a research study that would contradict the theory. We can,
however, answer questions about other types of mental processes that are indicated by observable behaviors.
For example, we can test the idea that anxiety causes sleeplessness. We can observe behaviors of sleeplessness
in situations where people are placed in anxiety-provoking situations with anxiety verified by self-report. If
anxious people are sleeping well, this contradicts our explanation of sleeplessness (i.e., anxiety) and provides us
with a good test of our explanation (although this particular result is unlikely to be found). As psychologists
using the scientific method, it is important that we ask questions and test explanations about behavior that can
be falsified by observations of those behaviors.

How is falsifiability used in psychological science? As indicated above, falsification of explanations of behavior
advances psychological science much more than supporting explanations (Platt, 1964). Whenever researchers
can show that an accepted explanation is not supported, it changes the direction of investigation in an area of
research and moves psychological science forward in gaining new knowledge about behavior. Making
predictions about the results they will find in their studies helps researchers contribute to the testability of
their observations. With clear predictions made before a study is conducted, researchers can design good tests
of their ideas about behavior and help them avoid falling prey to the confirmation bias in believing the results
are consistent with their ideas regardless of how they turn out.

The canons of science provide a general “how to” guide for psychologists designing research studies, because
they help us conduct good tests of our explanations of the causes of behaviors and further our understanding
of why certain behaviors occur. The rest of this text describes more of the details of how psychologists apply
these canons in designing and conducting research and walks you through the process of developing research

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studies of your own.

Parsimony: the assumption that the simplest explanation of a phenomenon is most likely to be correct

Testability: the assumption that explanations of behavior can be tested and falsified through observation

Confirmation bias: seeking only evidence that supports our beliefs and ignoring evidence that contradicts those beliefs

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Basic And Applied Research
As you begin to consider the types of questions that can be answered in psychological research studies (a topic
that will be covered more in Chapter 2), it is important to keep in mind the goals of two major categories of
research: basic research and applied research.

The goal of basic research is to understand the most fundamental processes of behavior and how they operate.
Research questions in basic research are typically about how a behavior works. How much information can we
store in short-term memory? Who exhibits more symptoms of depression: men or women? Do we have
implicit stereotypes that affect our social behavior?

Figure 1.3 Both Basic and Applied Research Studies Contribute Important Knowledge About Behavior

SOURCES: © iStockphoto.com/annedde (left); © iStockphoto.com/Squaredpixels (right).

Applied research is generally focused on answering questions related to solving real-world problems. What
type of automated teller machine (ATM) is the easiest to use? Which treatments are best in helping people
who are depressed? What type of work environment increases productivity of employees?

Typically, basic research provides fundamental knowledge of how behaviors operate that is useful to
researchers conducting applied studies. For example, suppose that a researcher finds that people who report
having insomnia also report symptoms of anxiety (a similar result was reported by Morphy, Dunn, Lewis,
Boardman, & Croft, 2007). A conclusion from this study might be that anxiety and sleeplessness are related in
some way (note that this does not mean that anxiety causes sleeplessness, only that they are related). This
conclusion represents basic knowledge about the connection between emotional state and sleeplessness or
insomnia. Researchers interested in the more applied question of how we help people with sleep problems
may use this basic knowledge to test treatments for sleeplessness that focus on reducing anxiety to determine
whether the relationship found in the above study is causal or not. The basic research in this case is vital for
the development of applied studies that address a real-world problem (i.e., insomnia). Table 1.2 provides some
additional examples of basic and applied research studies.

It is also important to remember that the applications of basic research may not be obvious when it is initially

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conducted. The utility of such research to real-world problems may not be revealed until much later when
enough is known about an issue to apply the knowledge gained in the basic research studies. For example,
early neuroscientists (e.g., Santiago Ramón y Cajal, as cited in Meyers, 2007) conducted basic research studies
to understand how neurons function. The applications of this knowledge were not clear until much later when
neuroscientists better understood how this neural functioning affected behavior. For example, we now know
that some types of disorders (e.g., depression) are linked to neuron functioning that is abnormal (e.g., higher
levels of serotonin than are typical; Barlow & Durand, 2008), and drugs have been developed to alter neuron
functioning to help individuals with such disorders. The understanding of the basic knowledge of neural
functioning became useful in helping individuals with disorders long after this research had been completed.
Thus, basic research is important to conduct, even if an application is not immediately clear.

Because applied research investigates realistic problems, applied researchers are often concerned with the
external validity of their studies. This means that they attempt to observe behaviors that can be applied to
real-life situations. This is important because these researchers want to be able to apply their results to a
problem that generalizes to individuals who are not participants in their study (as well as to those individuals
who were observed in the study). External validity is also a consideration in basic research but in some cases
can be less important than it is in applied research.

In turn, knowledge gained in applied studies can also help basic researchers refine their theories about how
behavior works. Suppose in the above example regarding anxiety and insomnia, the applied studies showed
that treatments reducing anxiety did not reduce the symptoms of insomnia (similar results were reported by
Morin, Belanger, & Fortier-Brochu, 2006). In this case, the basic researchers may use this knowledge to
hypothesize that the link between anxiety and insomnia may not be a simple causal relationship and conduct
further studies to better understand the causes of insomnia and how it is related to anxiety. In this way, the
two types of research, basic and applied, interact with each other, showing that both types of research are
critical to the field of psychology.

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As you encounter descriptions of psychological research, you may find that not all research fits neatly into
basic or applied categories. Some research can both answer fundamental questions about behavior and help
solve a realistic problem. It may be better to think about research as primarily basic or applied. In other words,
basic and applied descriptors may be end points in a continuum of types of research studies with each research
study falling somewhere between these end points.

Basic Research: research conducted with the goal of understanding fundamental processes of phenomena

Applied Research: research conducted with the goal of solving everyday problems

External Validity: the degree to which the results of a study apply to individuals and realistic behaviors outside the study

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Why Should I Care About Research If I Don’T Want To Do Research In
My Career?
Through my years of teaching psychology methods courses, this question is often asked by students taking
courses who don’t think they want to conduct research in their careers. Many students majoring in psychology
are interested in working as a practitioner of psychology or may be completing a psychology minor that is
related to another career they want to pursue (e.g., education, social work, etc.) and do not understand why
research methods courses are part of their curriculum. In fact, the majority of individuals who hold a degree in
psychology do not conduct research in their jobs. As mentioned earlier, the majority of individuals working in
psychological areas are in the helping professions. However, much of what we know about effective
treatments and counseling techniques comes from research in these areas. When a new treatment technique is
tested, its effectiveness is determined by the research conducted on it. Thus, just as medical doctors do,
clinicians and counselors must evaluate the latest research in psychology to determine whether a new
treatment is one they should adopt. Knowledge of how research is conducted can help them evaluate this
research more effectively to aid their practice. In addition, it is important that we as individuals understand
how to interpret the vast amounts of information we take in each day through media sources.

To give you a recent example, in debates about global warming and the seriousness of the problem, many
opponents of global warming solutions point out that there is disagreement among scientists about the
subject. As voters and consumers, it is important that we understand how research is conducted and that there
will almost always be disagreement among researchers in an area, because no single study can fully answer a
research question. In order to fully understand what answers the research provides on a question, we must
consider the accumulation of data in many research studies. We must also understand that new knowledge is
always gained and we must be flexible in our conclusions about an issue when new data suggest a different
answer. Remember, there was a time when most humans believed the sun revolved around the earth.
Scientific study revealed this idea to be false and over time humans adapted their beliefs to the new
knowledge.

Understanding research methods can also help you better interpret research study results that are reported in
the media. In almost all cases, media sources present concise and simplified reports of a research study and its
results, leaving many questions about the quality of the study still to be answered. When one encounters
reports of research in the media, some important questions should come to mind. Who were the research
subjects? Was an appropriate sample tested? Was an appropriate method used to investigate the question?
Were the results published in a high-quality source where other researchers were able to critique the work?
How do the results correspond to past studies on this topic? The topics covered in this text and in your
methods course will help you ask and answer these questions as you evaluate the reports you receive in the
media to make decisions about your life.

Finally, the new knowledge you gain from your study of research methods may help you decide how to
evaluate claims made by others in general. When you see an ad on television for a new miracle diet pill that
the ad claims has helped people lose weight in studies, should you buy the pill? When your friends tell you

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that drinking energy drinks helps you study better and do better on exams, should you follow their advice?
Hopefully, one of the things you will consider as you learn about research is to be skeptical about claims that
seem too good to be true. As described earlier, a good researcher uses the data to decide what the best thing to
do is rather than using unsubstantiated advice from others who just sound knowledgeable about a topic.
Examples of how to evaluate claims and research reported in the media are given in the Using Research
sections found at the end of some of the chapters in the text.

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Thinking About Research
A summary of a research study in psychology is given below. As you read the summary, think about the
following questions:

1. What behaviors are the researchers observing?

2. How are the observations being recorded by the researchers?
3. Were the researchers able to identify a cause of behavior from this study?
4. Were the researchers able to answer their research questions with the observations they collected? How?
5. What results would have falsified the explanation of behavior the authors were testing?
6. Do you think this study qualifies as primarily basic or applied research? Why?
7. What are some examples of real-world behaviors that the results of this study might apply to?

Research Study. Strayer, D. L., & Johnston, W. A. (2001). Driven to distraction: Dual-task studies of
simulated driving and conversing on a cellular phone. Psychological Science, 12, 462–466. [Note: Only
Experiment 1 of this study is described.]

Purpose of the Study. The researchers were interested in how use of a cell phone while driving influences
driving performance. They describe previous studies that have shown that devices that require one’s hands
while driving (e.g., the radio, temperature controls, etc.) can reduce driving performance. In this study, they
predicted that cell phone use would reduce driving performance. They tested two ideas about how cell phone
use could decrease driving: (1) that the hand use of the phone would interfere with driving and (2) that the
attention requirements of a phone conversation would interfere with driving.

Method of the Study. Forty-eight undergraduates (half male, half female) participated in the experiment. Each
of the students was randomly assigned to one of three cell phone conditions: hand-held phone, hands-free
phone, and no phone (radio control only). The participants performed a computer-simulated driving task
where they moved the cursor on the screen to match a moving target as closely as possible, using a joystick.
Red and green lights flashed periodically during the task and subjects were instructed to press the “brake”
button as quickly as possible when the red light flashed. They performed this task on its own in a practice
segment and two test segments, with a dual-task segment placed between the two test segments. In the dual-
task segment, they were given an additional task that included one of the following to match the conditions
listed above: hand-held phone conversation with another person (who was part of the research team) about a
current news story, hands-free phone conversation with another person about a current news story, or
controlling a radio to listen to a broadcast of their choice. The frequency of missing red lights and the reaction
time to hit the “brake” button when a red light appeared were measured and compared for the three phone
conditions.

Results of the Study. The two cell phone use conditions did not differ in their results, suggesting that driving
performance in response to red lights is similar for hand-held and hands-free phone use. Figure 1.4 shows a
graph for each of the measures according to the phone (combined for hand-held and hands-free conditions)

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and no-phone conditions. The data are shown in each graph separately for driving performance in the driving
only segments (single task) and for the phone/radio task while driving (dual task) segment. The graphs show
that more red lights were missed and time to press the “brake” button was longer when subjects were talking
on the phone (compared with when only driving), but there was no difference in driving performance when
subjects listened to the radio while driving and when they just performed the driving task on its own.

Conclusions of the Study. The authors concluded that phone use, regardless of whether it requires one’s hands,
interferes with driving performance more than just listening to the radio. This suggests that the attention
component of phone use is the key factor in the driving performance interference.

Figure 1.4 Driving Performance as Measured by Responses to Red Lights in the Driving Task While
Performing the Driving Task on Its Own (Single Task) or While Also Performing the Phone or Radio Task
(Dual Task)

SOURCE: Figure 1 from Strayer and Johnston (2001).

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