For humans there is nothing more important than time, it is the only thing in the world we have created a measure for, but yet cannot control. Think about the studies ofDarwin, the observation of finches on the galápagos (1859), for his findings time was a crucial factor affecting the nature of the birds as they evolved over generations. Likewise, historically there are many examples of discoveries that have only been made because of how time interacted in the experiment, for example the gravitational force,Newton(1687), without measuring time he could never have found the force of gravity.
In experimental psychology time is a vital component when testing subjects, just think about all the SONA experiments you have participated in the last two years, how many of them have measured reaction time?. Because we cannot measure the effects on stimuli directly on memory or behaviour, instead time functions as a substitute. When measuring reaction time, the aim is to find the difference in the processing of stimuli, and base conclusions hereafter.
Of course there is some problems using this process, for one, as we cannot determine the actual processes we cannot for sure say that the delay when showing a new stimuli is actually because of the new stimuli, but it might be that the subject for a split second got distracted by something else. And then if showing a similar set of stimuli, the one similar to the one processed without a distraction might be faster processed than the other, causing a continuous bias in all the trials.
However this bias that can interfere and is re-enforced by the learning effect is the only real limitation to reaction time studies, and according to Sternberg (2004) the use of reaction time has shown to show significant results over and over, and is the only way we currently have to our disposal when it comes to measuring mental abilities, and we can only show the difference between these processes with the measurement of time.
If you want to read more about the use of time measurements in experimental psychology, you can read about it on the following link: http://www.psych.upenn.edu/~saul/rt.experimentation.pdf
P.S. Happy Easter to all of you!!!!!!! 🙂
Have you ever after woken up in the morning, looked in a mirror and though, that does not look like me at all? Obviously this is because not many people look great in the morning, however it might also be that you, in your daze of tiredness mistook your identical twin on the other side of the doorway for being you.
Of course the chance of having an indentical twin is extremely small, in fact it is about 3/1000, however if you happen to be either an identical or fraternal twin you are very important for scientific research into genetics.
The approach of twin studies, in psychology, is generally used to show how much your personality and behaviour can be attributed to either nature or nurture, by comparing comparing fraternal twins to identical ones, and then compare differences between them, either in shared environment, or when twins have been adopted, and see if they still share some features in personally or sometimes even personal history. For example will you see, in adopted twins, that when they grow old they will have, to some extend, similar personalities and also interests and hobbies, sometimes even same view on attractiveness. (Olson et al., 2001). The results show how big a correlation there is between genetic interaction and environmental factors.
It seems to be a quite simple way to study things, i.e., if two identical twins significantly more share a trait than fraternal twins, then the cause of this trait ought to be caused by genetic factors, however think about this, in psychology we have accept results if they generalize for 95 % of the population, however dealing with twins, that is a population even below that number, they might all be extreme cases for what was measured, and therefore maybe because of their shared genes, they share a bias towards certains measures that normal people do not have.
Another limit to consider in twin studies, they can only measure correlation, nowadays most scientists have accepted a soft deterministic approach, that we have free will to some extent, but that our genetic make up will limit us in some way. So the studies can only show that ones genes, for a bigger or smaller part affects ones personality. And this is the biggest limitation to twin studies, and with the current technology I just don’t see any way this approach can move any further, than finding more correlations. But that is just what I think, you might have a different opinion.
The movie “The Matrix” from 1999, is most famously known for it’s philosophical viewpoint built on Rene Descartes idea about, what if nothing is actually real, and that our mind is being controlled by someone? The following clip is from the matrix, and if you have not seen it it can only be recommended very strongly.
However this clips is interesting for another reason, while Morpheus (Laurence Fishburne) tests Neo (Keanu Reeves), he is keeping parts of the test secret for Neo at the beginning of the training testing session, this omission of information is called deception.
Deception is when a researcher is generally seen as a researcher hiding the true reason behind the study for a participant, however it is technically any information the participant is not aware about during the experiment. The use of deception can be useful, most famously do we have Milgram’s study of obedience, in which he did not tell people that he was actually measuring obedience, rather than memory he claimed it was.
The main issue with using deception in research, is the violation of the integrity part of the APA guide lines, due to the participant agreeing to something else than what they actually agreed to, you can argue that the informed consent they gave was for another study, so in reality the researcher has technically experimented with another human being, without that persons knowledge. This is in theory a violation, not only of the ethical code of conduct by the APA, but also of the human rights, as you are performing an experiment on another human being that they did not agree to.
However does deception really carry such big risks? A study by Smith and Richardson (1983) looked into how participants was affected by deception, when they had participated in a study, and even though it potentially is quite serious, they found that people didn’t really minded being deceived, in fact because the debriefing of participants is so detailed, people who had been deceived expressed a higher level of joy about having participated, as the debriefing is a lot more detailed, which makes the participants feel more educated.
Nowadays, most examples of deception is found in medical testing whenever a placebo is involved, to test if drugs have an effect, or if it does nothing, especially because of the use of drugs, just thinking they have taken a drug, might change the behaviour of a participant, even if he/she just had a placebo. To avoid this and other ethical problems deception can cause Miller, Wendler and Swartzman (2005) came up with an idea they call “Authorized deception”. This idea is to inform participants about the deception, by telling every participant that there is a 50/50 chance of either having the drug or a placebo. Thus giving the participants the necessary knowledge about the experiment to truthfully sign the informed consent. Further research by Martin and Katz (2009) found that using this method when testing participants and drugs, is a valid way of doing it, as it has no influence on the actual placebo effects in participants, and because of this it is one of the safest ways to tell participants the truth about the study, without ruining it.
Although the use of deception can be justified in some cases, and that it seemingly does not actually harm participants, researchers still need to be weary when using it, because the use of deception does not only affect participants, but also the researchers own history. Which might affect his results in the long term, if participants knows the researcher has a habit of using deception, this will create mistrust to the researcher, and might also cause participants to behave differently. Furthermore if deception is used too wildly, it may damage the whole discipline of psychology, as participants are lured into experiments under false beliefs.
So in conclusion, the use of deception in research can be quite useful to study real life situations, as participants are not aware what is actually measured, this will decrease thehawthorneeffect. The method of authorized deception is currently the most ethical “right” way to conduct experiments, as participants actually agree to possibly being deceived. The use of deception should also be limited by researchers, as to keep their own integrity towards other people and the scientific society as a whole, as it is never nice being deceived by another human being.
References:
Smith, Stevens S.;Richardson, Deborah (1983): Amelioration of deception and harm in psychological research: The important role of debriefing.
Miller FG, Wendler D, Swartzman LC (2005) : Deception in Research on the Placebo Effect
Martin, L., katz, J. (2009): Inclusion of authorized deception in the informed consent process does not affect the magnitude of the placebo effect for experimentally induced pain
In this blog I will give you a couple of tips of how to survive.
Tip number 1: Avoid vending machines, annually they kill twice the amount that sharks kill.
Tip number 2: Avoid the months January, March and December, they are responsible for app. 1/3 of all deaths.
Tip 3: Avoid toothpicks, they are the most popular object to choke on.
Tip 4: Don’t cheat!!! You are 4 times more likely to die if you have sex with another person than your wife.
Tip 5: Be obese, this improves your chances of surviving a car crash by 250%!!!!
What you probably have noticed with these advices is that only one factor is responsible for another factor, that a single factor can increase your chance of survival. However what about everything else that might affect you? The problem with stating the truth of these tips is similar to the problems with correlation studies, and now you may (or not) wonder what a correlation study is.
Correlations is defined by www.thefreedictionary.com as: “The simultaneous change in value of two numerically valued random variables”. So in other words, a correlation is when there is either a positive or negative relationship between two variables, best shown on a graph like this:
Line has positive slope, so strong positive correlation.
Using a correlation has some very big advantages, firstly it shows whether there is a relationship or not between two variables, and if there is, it can both show the strength of it (How effective), stronger correlation shows bigger effect, and the direction, whether one factor affects the other in a positive or negative way. This is very much like my tips of survival, they show you how to live longer (the direction) and by how much it will increase your chances (strength). Although having correlations to show things are related seems like a good idea, there is quite a big disadvantage to them as well, they can NEVER ever show causality!!!! A correlation study can never be used for proving anything, it can only show that for some reason both variables seems to be affected, but can never state that one directly causes the other to rise as well. That is why you need to be careful when you look at correlations, and definitely also statistics like my survival tips, even if one factor seems to increase the other, other factors also play a role, of course there is the off-chance that a correlation actually shows the causation, however chances are a billion times higher that it is any other random factor which causes it!!
So to summarize all of this blog into something useful, correlation studies can be used to show whether two factors are related, which shows if they are worth examining for causation. A correlation shows the direction and strength of the relationship as well, and the stronger it is, the more likely one factor is to have some effect on the other, however it cannot be stressed enough, a correlation can never show causation!!! This is what i hope you learned form this blog, and then of course also how to survive, as there still is a chance the tips are effective.
The statistics used can be found on:
The song: facts of life by Lazyboy (this also contains other random facts) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zkvPZ94Yrrc
The scientific method has been used for many millennia, as a way of discovering science, and is widely accepted as the only proper, and objective way of doing science. Qualitative research methods on the other hand, has often been accused of being non-scientific and too subjective, so the question I am asking in this blog is, does qualitative research methods violate the scientific method?
Firstly the scientific method is a 5 step model/guide for how science should be done, and goes like this:
1: Observation – You walk around in the real world and suddenly see something that interests you.
2: Hypothesis testing – You form a hypothesis, based on the observations you made in nature.
3: Test – Next step is to empirically test the hypothesis in a controlled setting, so the study can be replicated and be validated by other scientists (Objectivity).
4: Review results – Evaluate the results, and finds a way to further improve research
5: Re-test – last step is to take the evaluated hypothesis and perform all steps over again.
Qualitative methods starts out the same way, however, when step three is reached it changes significantly from the scientific method. By then the researcher can choose to change in his method or hypothesis, as it is more flexible in it’s approach, thus why it is considered subjective.
On the other hand, one of the greatest strengths of the scientific method is it’s objectivity, as any experiment should be empirically tested multiple times by other researchers, and always produce the same result. However if just one example gives another result, the whole theory can be discarded, according to Karl Popper. Karl Popper, the Austrian philosopher, who believed that for anything to be scientific it should have the potential to be falsified in theory, but not be it in practice, and if it ever was it was not scientific anymore. Because of this, the scientific method looks to generalize as much as possible to others. This is also different from the qualitative methods, as they instead prefer to have a small sample, and not make any too big overall generalizations, but only within small groups.
This however gives a quite clear advantage to either one of them, for example the scientific method, it’s greatest strength is that it can establish causal relationships very easily, as it manipulates single variables, and operates with a cause-effect approach. However it cannot explain everything, even though some scientists will claim there is a formula for beauty, there is just no universal formula for beauty, that is where qualitative research is useful. It can measure abstract concepts, that otherwise there is no reliable measure for, for example telling someone they are depressed because they lack dopamine in their brain is not going to be very helpful, instead qualitative methods can help understand these. In a way you can say that qualitative research methods are like the poetry of science, in which feelings are expressed and taking into consideration, as a form of scientific art.
So to conclude, does qualitative methods violate the scientific method? And the answer is: YESS!!! But does it really matter? Not all humans are the same, we are all different individuals, and we have different attitudes and feelings, and since we do not have the ability to mind-read others, so we cannot possible know their thoughts and attitudes, that is why I think even if qualitative methods do not follow the scientific method, it is the best way of studying internal structures.
Nirapsy 