Ages and Stages
 Ejournal

Research methods in psychology

By Dr. Mark Burgess and Dr. Stephen Kemp

How do young children learn the skills of becoming a good friend? Why do people join gangs and cults? At what age is a child able to resist temptation? Why do some people help in a crisis, and other people just stand and watch?

A variety of research methods have helped psychologists answer the previous questions and illuminate our understanding of many areas of human thought and behaviour. Psychology can be a lot of fun. It is also challenging, creative, and is personally and scientifically rewarding when the research is done properly. This article outlines how we answer psychological questions. Rather than focusing exclusively on the answers themselves, we will focus on the ways answers are discovered.

Naturalistic Observation

There are a variety of observational research styles and these are arranged according to the degree of observer intervention. In Naturalistic research, the observer does not intervene at all. For all intents and purposes, the researcher is invisible and works hard not to interrupt the natural dynamics of the situation being investigated. For example, if we were interested in the social interactions of school children we might observe their behavior at recess. In a situation such as this, the researcher might be looking for specific behaviors according to a predetermined set of criteria (such as fighting, sharing, conversations, etc). On the other hand, naturalistic methods may also be used when little is known about the phenomenon being investigated and the researcher uses her observations to develop hypotheses.

Pros and Cons: Naturalistic methods can give us rich descriptions about the nature of the social world where there is little or no manipulation of the environment. On the other hand, Naturalistic methods limit the extent to which we can draw meaningful conclusions about the causes of behaviors due to the lack of control over the situation.

Participant Observation

Researchers intervene to a greater extent when they engage in participant observation. Some of the “heavyweight champions” of social psychology (Festinger, Reicher, and Schachter) adopted this method for research on cult members. Cults and doomsday groups have enjoyed a long history. Ordinarily such groups (a) predict a calamity and the date on which it will occur, and (b) prepare for the tragic event. For example, members of the “Heaven’s Gate” group were looking forward to leaving their “Earthly vessel” (the body) when a spaceship following the Hale-Bopp comet would take them to a higher level! Festinger and his colleagues infiltrated a group called the “Seekers”. The Seekers were led by a middle-aged housewife who received messages from “Guardians” located on the planet “Clarion.” The Guardians’ messages informed Mrs. Keech of the time and date of a massive flood that would wipe-out the United States. In return for their faithfulness, members of the Seekers would be rescued by a spaceship! So far the world hasn’t ended, meaning the cult members must cope with the obvious fact that they, and we, are still here!

Pros and Cons: One of the advantages of participant observation is that we can gain access to situations that would otherwise remain closed, and therefore get a better idea of the experience under investigation. However, if people know they are being studied they will likely alter their behavior to present themselves in a more desirable manner. Even if the researcher’s successfully conceals his identity from the rest of the group (as was the case with the Seekers), he will unconsciously alter the group dynamics simply as a result of being a group member. Also, the researcher may even develop sympathies for the people being studied (or learn to despise them!) and develop an exaggerated bias for or against the group.

Field Experiments

In field experiments, researchers set up all aspects of a particular event and have almost complete control over the social context. The people being studied are not aware that they are being observed even though the researcher is controlling the situation. An example would be a study in which a researcher wanted to know under what conditions people are likely to help others in need. The researcher might “fake” an accident, or “fake” a person in distress such as a person appearing to be having a heart attack. In this mode of research, the participants are unaware that they are involved in a controlled situation and that their responses are being observed.

Pros and Cons: The researcher has an enormous amount of control over the social context and this is helpful in enabling us to make causal statements. On the other hand, the situation lacks the natural aspect of the observational methods.

Experiments

Experimental research does allow us to identify causal relations. For example, following a brutal assault and eventual murder of a young woman in New York City, psychologists wanted to know why nobody did anything to help the victim. In fact, 37 people witnessed the event, yet nobody even called the police. Darley and Latane (1968) predicted that increasing numbers of bystanders at an emergency actually decreases the probability that any one bystander will intervene and help the victim. They set out to investigate the phenomenon of bystander intervention experimentally.

Darley and Latane (1968) had participants arrive at a laboratory and wait in a foyer area with other supposed participants (these were actually part of the researcher team). One of the “fake participants” who had already claimed to suffer from epilepsy started to have a “seizure”. The researchers had hypothesized that if nobody else was present, the participant would go for help more frequently (and more quickly) than if one or more other people were present. In fact, this was true, 85% of participants intervened if they were the only ones present, whereas only 62% intervened if one other person was present, and 31% intervened if four other people were present.

The researchers had complete control over the experimental context. They controlled all aspects of the situation in order that they could confidently state that the number of people at an emergency does indeed impact the likelihood of a particular person lending a hand.

Pros and Cons: Experimental researchers take care to create an environment in which they can make causal statements. They manipulate variables, randomly assign participants to various conditions, and seek to control other influences that could affect their research. However, in working so hard to control all aspects of the situation except the one variable they are examining, the researcher may create an environment that is rather artificial and may not easily generalize to the real world. Also, there may be some important areas of life that we cannot study experimentally for ethical reasons. For example, we might want to know about the effects of bullying, but would be unable to investigate the phenomenon experimentally as it would be unethical to place people in those kinds of situations.

Interview

The interview method of research, typically, involves a face-to-face meeting  in which a researcher (interviewer) asks an individual a series of questions. The interviewer usually tape records or writes down the participant’s responses. To enhance the value of the interview, the researcher should prepare questions in advance, even though there is a likelihood of the “conversation” going off on a number of different tangents.

Pros and Cons: The advantage of an interview over a survey or questionnaire is that it allows for a wider range of responses. But, the interview technique is time consuming, and, as with questionnaires, no cause-and-effect relationships can be inferred. (Lefton, 2000, p. 14)

Survey, or Questionnaire

Conducting research using a survey involves going out and asking questions about the phenomenon of interest. The survey method is especially useful for collecting data from a large number or people and is often the only way of obtaining data about thoughts, feelings, and private behaviour not open to direct observation.

Pros and Cons: The strength of the questionnaire is that it gathers a large amount of information in a short space of time. Its weaknesses are that it is impersonal, it gathers only the information asked by the questions, it limits the participants’ range of responses, it cannot prevent some respondents leaving some questions unanswered or from being untruthful in their responses, and it does not provide a structure from which cause-and-effect relationships can be inferred. (Lefton, 2000, p. 14)

Summary

There are a variety of techniques available for psychological investigation. Which technique is actually chosen depends largely upon the researcher’s own research interests, methodological training, and personal preference. It is important to acknowledge that any one method is not superior to another. Rather, different methods are appropriate under different circumstances, and their combined impact has increased our understanding of the social environment considerably.