PSYC 203 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Electrodermal Activity, Naturalistic Observation, Operational Definition
9 May 2019
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• Psychology took longer than other sciences to adopt scientific method
o Measuring concepts in physics = easier than measuring in psychology
o Measure happiness/doubt?
• Behaviour = influenced by many things
o Cookie before lecture = Biological (craving, reward, blood sugar, genetic predisposition),
psychological (bored, sad, longer, enjoy them), or environmental (near, social
obligation)
• Levels of analysis:
o Biological: brain processes, genetic influences, hormone levels, basic needs
o Psychological: personal thoughts, feelings, motives
o Environmental: past/current physical and social environment
o Different levels interact with one another:
• Mind-body interactions:
▪ Imagine favorite food = release digestive enzymes
▪ People with something to live for = recover from illness faster
• Environmental-biological interactions:
▪ Epigenetics, environment triggers which genes are expressed
▪ Social environment triggers genes for facial flanges to be expressed, or not
• Defining and measuring variables:
o Variable: any characteristic or factor that can vary/change
• Vary between different people, or within a given person over time
o Psychological variables: self esteem, stress, happiness, doubt, intelligence, memory,
accuracy, learning ability, language performance, hormone levels, neurotransmitters
and behaviour
• Operational definition: defines a variable in terms of the specific procedures used to measure
(or produce) it;
o Defines how experiment will observe or measure abstract concepts
o Example 1: Intoxication (variable)
• Operational definitions:
▪ Psychological measure: blood alcohol levels
▪ Behavioural measure: missteps in roadside sobriety (straight line)
▪ Self-report measure: score from self-report form (intoxication index scale)
o Example 2: Exam stress; if people with high levels of exam stress perform worse on
standardized exams than those with low exam stress?
• Operational definitions:
▪ Biological: heart rate, adrenaline, cortisol, galvanic skin response, breathing
▪ Psychological: survey, observe behaviour
▪ Environmental: parental expectations, difficulty, prep time, duration, noise
• Non-experimental Methods of Research:
o Descriptive Research: how people and animals behave (natural settings, real life)
• Basic goal of psychology - describe
• Methods: Case studies, naturalistic observation, and surveys
o Case Study (descriptive): in-depth analysis of one individual, a small group, or event
• Uses any method of measuring variables
• Advantages:
▪ Good for rare phenomena
▪ Generate new ideas and hypotheses to be tested
▪ Challenge validity of scientific theories
• Disadvantages:
▪ Not good for cause and effect
▪ Not easily generalized
▪ Measurement/observer bias
o Naturalistic Observation (descriptive): researcher observes behaviour in natural setting
• Relies on measuring overt behaviour
• Requires observational record (notes, videos)
• Advantages:
▪ Provides rich description of behaviour in "real world"
• Disadvantages:
▪ Not good for cause and effect (too many variables)
▪ Observer bias (expectation = distort/colour observation or perception)
▪ Presence of researcher = affect behaviour (observer effect)
▪ Possible anthropomorphic error (researching animals)
o Survey Research (descriptive): information = obtained by administering questionnaires,
surveys, interviews (i.e. political polls)
• Ask about behaviours, expectancies, attitudes
• Advantages:
▪ Efficient means of collecting data
▪ Reveal changes in beliefs/habits over time
• Disadvantages:
▪ Cannot determine cause/effect
▪ Based on self reports
• Social desirability bias (lie to seem more desirable)
• Interview bias; ask leading not imposing questions
• Inaccurate self perceptions
• People may misinterpret questions
• Non representative samples possible, even with random sampling
• Correlational Research:
o Correlation method: a research technique in which two or more variables are measured
to determine if they are related in a systematic way (no manipulation)
o Correlation: how well one variable can be predicted by another
o Correlation coefficient: statistic indicating the strength and direction of a relationship
• Correlation Coefficient:
o Pearson's Correlation Coefficient:
• Number that tells us the direction and strength of the relationship
• Any number from -1.00 to +1.00
• Positive vs. negative numbers = direction of the relationship
• Absolute value = strength of relationship
• Positive Correlation: when one variable increases, the other variable tens to
increase as well (and vice versa)
▪ Points = close to line of fit
• Negative Correlation: when one variable increases, the other tends to decrease
(and vice versa)
▪ Points = far from line of fit
• When the correlation is zero, we say that there is "no correlation" between the
variables- they are unrelated
• Number value (absolute) = strength of relation
Document Summary
Levels of analysis: biological: brain processes, genetic influences, hormone levels, basic needs, psychological: personal thoughts, feelings, motives, environmental: past/current physical and social environment, different levels interact with one another, mind-body interactions: Imagine favorite food = release digestive enzymes: people with something to live for = recover from illness faster, environmental-biological interactions, epigenetics, environment triggers which genes are expressed. Social desirability bias (lie to seem more desirable) Sex or ethnicity, why: experimental method: one or more variables is manipulated to determine if it influences other variables, manipulate one or more variables. Interaction: how much (or the way that) one iv affects the dv depends on the second iv. Inferential statistics: allow us to determine whether differences between groups or levels of the iv are "real" and "big enough" differences: statistical significance defined as "the result would happen by chance in less than 5 in. Little to no differences in happiness between men and women.
