One of the oldest methods of research is the case study, in which psychologist study one or more individuals in great depth with the hope of an accomplishment of revealing true to all persons. Sigmund Freud came up with his theory of personality from a series of case studies. Case studies can be misleading, unrepresented knowledge of the individual can lead to a false conclusion. The survey method is commonly used in correlation and descriptive studies.
A survey is less in depth than the case study.Surveys ask people to tell about their own opinions or behavior. When asking questions one must be careful of how the question is worded, this can be known as wording effects. The representative sample is the only way to get an accurate picture of the attitudes and experiences of an entire population.
They key point in sampling is to remember that the best way to base a generalization is not to use the exceptional cases in extremes. A population is all the cases in a group in which experiments or samples may be used for a study.A sample that fairly represents a population because each individual in the study has in equal chance of being included is known as a random sample. Another research method is the descriptive method known as naturalistic observation. This method involves observing and recording behavior in a situation that is occurring naturally without any manipulation. This method can range anywhere from observing animal societies in the jungle to interactions between a parent and their child.
This method in 1999 enabled Robert Levine and Ara Norenzyan to define pace of life as walking speed, the speed with which postal clerks completed a simple task and the accuracy of public clocks. The first step towards predicting behavior is describing it. In order for a trait or behavior to correlate, the trait or behavior must accompany one another. The statistical measurement of the extent in which two variables vary together and how well either variable predicts the other is known as correlation coefficient.An example of this would be the amount of television an individual watches and how prone they are to becoming aggressive, this theory would state; the amount of TV-watching one does modestly predicts their aggressiveness.
A negative correlation is described as when one variable increases the other decreases. An example of this is when an individual scores low on self-esteem they generally score high on depression. Experimental research is the most efficient and cleanest way to isolate cause and effect. By doing an experiment, researchers are able to solely focus on possible effects of one or more variables.
1. ) Manipulating the factors of interest 2. ) Controlling other factors An example would be to observe the effects of alcohol consumption and the individual’s ability to think rationally. Placebo is a Latin term that means “I shall please”. When once experiences a placebo effect it means, an inert substance or condition is administered instead of the presumed active agent. For example giving an individual a pill with no type of drug substance in it and the individual experience whatever side effect this pill was supposed to do.
This term was created by Kirsch & Sapirstien in 1998.During an experiment using a placebo effect, normally neither the patient nor the researcher collecting data is aware that there is no actual treatment being received. This is known as a double-blind procedure. It enables researchers to observe the effects and reactions the patient displays without any bias judgment.
An experimental condition and control condition is then created through the double-blind procedure. In the experimental control the patient receives treatment vs. the control condition where the patient is given no treatment but lead to believe they have been.The patients selected for these experiments are done through random assignment. Random assignment is the act of assigning individuals to experimental and control conditions by chance, which then minimizes any preexisted differences between the individuals.
A simple experiment such as using a placebo effect to convince patients Advil made their headache go away only manipulates one drug factor. This type of method is known as the independent variable because it is the one being manipulated and it can vary it independently.It is also the variable that is being studied. An example of an independent variable would be as followed, the individual’s gender, age, weight, and personality. In the experiment there is also a dependent variable. In psychology he dependent variable is the mental process or behavior that is measured.
This variable may change due to response to manipulations of the independent variable. Examples of dependent variables in an experiment may be how much of the drug dosage was given and the time period in which the observations were made.
