Analyzing Research Findings

Behavioral psychology often makes use of experimental psychology, mostly because of the direct observability of behaviors. Classical conditioning and operant conditioning both fall under the category of experimental psychology studies.

ANALYZING RESEARCH FINDINGS

The goal of a research project is to find a correlation between two or more variables. A common way to measure correlation is through a correlation coefficient. This is a number that ranges from -1 to +1. A minus one correlation is a strong indication that there is a negative correlation between the variables. A plus one correlation is a strong indication that there is a positive correlation between the variables. Correlations of zero mean that there is no relationship between the variables. Things that increase in the same direction have a positive correlation, while things that go opposite to one another have a negative correlation. These things can be tested on a scatter plot. Figure 2 shows a scatter plot with a positive correlation:

Figure 2.

You need to remember that a positive correlation does not indicate a cause and effect. There could be a confounding variable that skews the interpretation of the data points. An example of this is the positive correlation between ice cream intake and crime rates. This does not mean that one of these things affects the other. Both of these things increase because of rising ambient temperatures, making temperature a confounding variable.

There are also illusory correlations, which are erroneous cause and effect determinations. They come when there are unsystematic observations. The relationship between the phase of the moon and behavior is strongly believed by many people because of unsystematic observations. Actual research has disproven this relationship.

In some cases, there can be a conformational bias. This is the tendency to believe illusory correlations because one ignores things that do not support one s intuition or hunches. These can lead to prejudices and discrimination.

In order to determine cause and effect, you first need to have a clear and specific question and hypothesis. Often the hypothesis involves a belief that something causes something else to be the case. Does television cause violent behavior in children? This implies a cause, which is television, and effect, which is violent behavior.

Then you must design your experiment. The basic experiment has two groups: the experimental group, which gets manipulated, and the control group, which does not get manipulated. You must determine what aspect of the outcome is measurable, quantifiable, and observable. You need to operationalize the findings, which means you must define, for example, what is violent behavior and what is nonviolent behavior. You need also to define how long the child must watch television to have an impact.

Experimenter bias involves the possibility that the expectations of the researcher will skew the study results. This is helped by having a single-blind study, in which the experimenter does not know which child watched TV and which did not. As you remember, double-blinded studies involve no one knowing who was in the experimental group and who was in the control group. This eliminates the placebo effect, where the subject s expectations are based on getting some treatment, even if it is expected to have no impact on the outcome.