SOSC 1980

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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 What challenges are you currently

facing?
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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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 genM: The Multitasking Generation

 54% reported multitasking
 A time saver
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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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 When doing complex and unfamiliar

tasks, don’t multitask!
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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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 Deepen our self-understanding

 Better coping skills

“Life's challenges are not supposed to paralyze you,

they're supposed to help you discover who you are.”
- Bernice Johnson Reagon
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How do psychologists study

adjustment and growth?
 Descriptive Research
 Correlational Study
 Survey Study
 Naturalistic Observation
 Case Study
 Experimental Research
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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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1. More money makes people happier.

Money Happiness
 Interpreting correlation
2. Happier people makes more money.
Happiness Money

3. Healthier people are wealthier and happier.

Health

Money Happiness

Health = Confounding Variable

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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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Gender roles vary across cultures

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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

The John/Joan Case

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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

 Dependent Variable (DV): a variable

that an experimenter expects will be
affected by manipulations of the IV
 Physical aggressiveness

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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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 Given no special training

 Free to do whatever
necessary to (1)
Maintain law and order
and (2) Command
respect
 Guards dressed in
identical uniforms
 Carried whistle and billy
club
 Wore mirrored sunglasses
to block eyes
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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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Basic Elements of an Experiment

 Independent variable
 Assigned role
 Dependent variable
 Change in behaviors
 Random Assignment
 Randomly assigned to play the guard or
prisoner
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Required Reading
 Ch. 1