Psychology

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LESSON 2:  RESEARCH METHODS

Grit and Resilience

Grit and Resilience Building Your... Reflection Exercises

Grit and Resilience

Grit: the power of passion and perseverance | Angela Lee DGrit: the power of passion and perseverance | Angela Lee D……

Take the "Grit Scale" on Angela Duckworth's website here

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Psychology is so applicable to such a wide variety of life contexts (work, parenting, relationships, schooling, etc.) that it's no surprise new ideas from the field frequently take our culture by storm.  Over the last several years, the concept of "grit" has captured the imagination of people everywhere, especially as it applies to business and educational settings.  Duckworth essentially took a fresh look at an older concept called "resilience" and extended the set of ideas.  Review the brief videos below to see these ideas explained  - be asking yourself, where's the science behind these ideas?  How do we gather evidence for psychological qualities like resilience and grit?  What parts of the human experience could you help to uncover someday?

Best TED TALK on Super- Resilience-How to FALL UP/ ChecBest TED TALK on Super- Resilience-How to FALL UP/ Chec……

Building Your Ability to Persevere

Click on the following image link to read an article, 5 Ways to Develop a Growth Mindset Using Grit and Resilience, from the Positive Psychology Program on way to develop grit and resilience.

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Reflection Exercises Scroll over the circles below to read the two Reflection Exercises.  Schedule some time to complete these, so you can write about one of them in the Lesson 2 Reflection Exercise.

Perseverance in Your Life

Grit Scale

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LESSON 2:  RESEARCH METHODS

Analysis of Findings:  Correlation

Correlation Correlation vs...

Once a set of observations have been made about the behavior of interest, psychological researchers look for patterns in the data.  This often means searching for correlations, which in essence means "co-relation." If our research finds a correlation between two variables, we take that to indicate that as one variable changes you can predict with some level of accuracy the value of the second variable. For example, if height and weight were correlated, we would be better at guessing someone's weight if we knew their height than if we did not. Of course, height and weight are correlated, but so are many, many other features of humans, including things we study in psychology. This lesson prepares you for the great wealth of knowledge correlational studies have taught us.

One important note of caution related to the concept of correlation is warranted, however.  A correlation only suggests that two variables are linked - we cannot declare for certain that one variable is causing the other.  This is because there are likely many other variables that we did NOT measure that could account for the observed connection.  For instance, if the number of murders and the consumption of ice cream both increase during warmer weather,  there may be a correlation between the two phenomena, but no causation.

After all, researchers usually only measure a handful of variables they think are important to understanding the behavior of interest.  But in truth, human behavior is so complex that many hundreds of variables or factors are behind even the simplest of behaviors.  A correlation, then, tells us that we might have identified a possible connection.  But before we declare that two

Correlation

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variables are causally linked, a different research methodology is needed:  the experimental approach.

Here are two more examples of plots showing two variables that are HIGHLY correlated, but have no obvious causal connection:

and...

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Correlation vs. Causation Exercise As an exercise, see if you can tell the difference between correlation (association) and causation.  Read through this brief newspaper clip.  What 'caused' what in this situation?  Did the ice cause the uptick in births?  Was it the snow?  The power company's inability to respond quickly?  What exactly was the 'causal' sequence of events?  Or are these things merely associated?  Reflect on this for a few minutes before you move on.

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LESSON 2:  RESEARCH METHODS

Research Methods and Psychological Science

Introduction The Need for... Stossel Testing... Your L2...

Introduction Have you ever wondered about where our knowledge comes from? How do we "know" that the earth revolves around the sun? Why do we believe that the brain is the central controller of our most interesting behaviors? How do we know that the chair we're sitting on is really there?

For centuries scholars have debated about the sources of knowledge. A list of possible sources include common sense, authority, reasoning or logic, and observation. Each listed source has its strengths and weaknesses -which you might want to discuss in the discussion forum; in the academic discipline of psychological science, the source of knowledge that is used is the Scientific Method.

A combination of reasoning and observation, the Scientific Method presumes, among other things, that there is an orderliness to the universe, but that all claims to truth or knowledge should be approached with an open-minded skepticism (e.g., an "I won't believe until you show me" approach). This is also called the empirical approach - a way of understanding that derives from objective, measurable observations about the world.  As the Scientific Method has developed, different methodologies have evolved to facilitate our understanding of the psychological world. This lesson provides a brief glimpse at some of the more common methods used in psychological scientific research. As the lesson comes to a close you may want to consider the following: Would you be able to choose the right method for any psychological question you might want to investigate?

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Why do we need a science of psychology? Can't we all just "look" inside our mind's eye and "see" what's going on there? Can we really be wrong about why or how we do things?

As it turns out the answers to these questions are not obvious to the first time student of psychology. Generally, the answer to the second question is "No" - we cannot just "look" inside and "see" how and why we act, think, feel. The history of psychology is full of attempts that have tried to use this methodology, termed "introspection", and failed. Human behavior is too complicated; our abilities to reason too limited; and our biases about humans - including ourselves and others - get in the way. Thus, we need a scientific approach to psychology: a more objective way of collecting data, analyzing it, and coming to conclusions that will be agreed upon by other scientific researchers.

As you complete this section of the lesson, reflect on why these techniques are necessary. For example, do YOU always believe the explanations you provide in your mind for your OWN behavior?

The Need for Psychological Science

Stossel Testing Therapeutic Touch The following short video applies the Scientific Method to pseudo-medical claims.  It features Emily Rosa, the youngest person ever to publish in the prestigious JAMA--Journal of the American Medical Association.

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STOSSEL TESTING THERAPEUTIC TOUCHSTOSSEL TESTING THERAPEUTIC TOUCH

Your L2 Discussion: Choosing a Research Method Could you design a study to test ANY behavioral concept?  Human behavior is so broad, complex and varied, and psychological research offers multiple ways to perform research. 

Remember your question from the Lesson 1 Discussion?  What kind of psychological research might be used to answer it?  What hypothesis might you test?  What form do you think that research would take?  How would you set it up?

Check out the Lesson 2 Discussion and keep these questions in mind as you read your chapter text and the following pages.

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LESSON 2:  RESEARCH METHODS

The Experimental Method and Reliability and Validity

Psychological... Reliability and...

Psychological Experiments:  The Experimental Method One of the most powerful methodologies in the psychological scientist's tool bag is the experimental method: controlling the circumstances and causal variables of an event and observing the consequences. Obviously, not all interesting questions in psychology can be studied experimentally. For example, we do not intentionally separate twins at birth just to see what will happen. But many psychological phenomena can be brought in to the laboratory. In this section you will learn some of the key terms and concepts we use to describe experimental situations.

Consider exploring some current experiments in psychology; while you do so, keep in mind your question from the Lesson 1 Discussion, and how you might design research around it.

To do so, visit the American Psychological Association's "Psychological Research on the Net" website. This site contains links to other websites with active experiments available online. For example, you will see links to websites dedicated to the topic of cognition. Feel free to explore and try a few out. How well do you think your experience fits a true "experimental" situation? Can you figure out the dependent and independent variable?  What about the reliability and validity of the research?  We'll explore these concepts next.

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Reliability and Validity Two of the most fundamental considerations in conducting psychological scientific research are the concepts of reliability and validity.  Reliability refers to the repeatability of the observations that have been made.  If a researcher is observing two children on a playground who appear to be arguing - she might mark the behavior down as being high in aggression.  Another researcher may mark the same encounter as mildly aggressive.  The lack of agreement makes both observations unreliable - which one should we trust?  Consistency of observation is the key to reliability - either across multiple raters or across instances of the same behavior.  Validity is the scientific concept that gets at how close to the actual reality an observation gets - is what you claim to be measuring really and truly captured by how you're measuring it?  Take the scenario we just discussed.  Perhaps the researchers were using a scale that measures the level of aggression exhibited by children.  Both of them thought they were observing aggression, albeit to a different degree.  When instead, what was really happening was play fighting - the kids were acting out a scene from their favorite

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movie!  This is one of the first set of questions that you should ask yourself from now on whenever you read about findings from scientific research.  Ask yourself:  Was the measure that was used reliable, or consistent?  And then, was that the true, correct measure of that behavior?

Notice in the first bullseye, you are consistently (reliably) measuring the same thing, but it's NOT the thing you're interested in studying (the center of the bullseye).  As an example, suppose you wanted to study depression and you accidentally chose your sample of participants from a funeral home - you would definitely be measuring something, likely the sadness that comes with mourning, but you wouldn't be measuring depression, which is what you had set out to study.

In the second bullseye, notice how all your attempts at measurement are centering around the thing that you want to study, but none are quite hitting on the main idea exactly.  You're getting close, but there's no consistency (reliability).

In the third bullseye, there is no consistency and you really aren't getting close to measuring or understanding the phenomenon of interest (validity).

Finally, you can see a well-calibrated measure/approach in the fourth bullseye - you have found a way to consistently measure the behavior of interest time and time again.