Research Methods in Psychology

Marx & Hillix (1963)

2011-06-11T10:48:00.000-06:00

Needed to write about Clark Hull recently. Naturally, most new history texts or learning text only provide cursory information about him now.

I remembered that somewhere in my office I had a copy of Marx and Hillix's old History and Systems text. Its coverage of Hull was more detailed and proved most useful to me. Being an academic pack rat (e.g., keeping that old book) once again was a good thing for me. Never throw anything away. That's my message.

What Social Science Knows and Does Not Know

2010-08-06T10:25:00.008-06:00

Jim Manzi has just published an incisive article in the City Journal titled: What Social Science Does-and Doesn't-Know. In it, he makes a compelling case for experimentation and for the importance of control groups.

He briefly reviews the history of experimentation beginning with Galileo. Then, he provides examples from economics and criminology. He introduces the problem of causal density and writes that it, in effect, dooms many otherwise worthy randomized field trials.

He then moves into the business world citing the success of the credit card company Capitol One. That company answers its own questions via large scale, but relatively economical experimentation. He uses the example of deciding whether to mail customers solicitations in white or blue envelopes. Capitol One simply mailed 50,000 of each color to randomly selected customers and waited to see the results. Since then, other business have adopted similar methods.

He offers three conclusions:

It is exceedingly difficult to demonstrate that any kind of social program works via traditional randomized and replicated trials. Social evolution with its attendant trial and error process may "trump" those methods.
Far more social programs fail than succeed, especially programs designed to change the way people think or behave. Incentives work better.
Most successful programs only lead to modest improvements, but that's ok.

My Office

2009-12-14T17:17:00.012-06:00

Here is where I work. Here's a tour from left to right. On the left is one of my servers. It serves my research methods ideas database (private, sorry) and sometimes others (e.g., for candidates for our job searches). Next is my window air conditioner, possibly the most important piece of equipment of all, given our hot summers along with the fact that the building is not cooled from Thursday night until Sunday mornings in the summer. The gooseneck lamp, too, is vital as my eyes get older. The small television is connected to the local cable system and comes in handy when I am doing mechanical work such as grading tests from a key. It stays off when I'm trying to write. It's on top of an old 13" RGB monitor (just in case I ever get another Apple II+) and it's on top of a large speaker. The huge 24" screen belongs to my three-year old, ailing, out-of-warranty iMac. It can no longer be trusted, alas. About once a week it decides to enter an endless loop featuring the spinning Mac pinwheel icon. Fortunately, restarting it seems to kick it out of its misery. There are two phones. The one nearest the foreground no longer has a working line connected to it. It used to be connected to our long gone modem server (remember those days?). That phone is gone now, freeing up some desk space. The scanner between the phones only scans slides now; it's main scanner bulb is weak, plus it costs more to buy the bulb than to buy a new scanner. The stereo works and the wire hanging down from the ceiling is its FM antenna. It's in the only orientation that will receive a good signal. Under the scanner is a 12 port router connecting all of the computers to the Internet and to the local printers. Barely visible on top of the router is my next to last cell phone. It only serves to forward my calls to its number to my new phone. Last on the right is one of the world's fastest System 9 laptops. It was built as aG4 OS X machine but its hard drive died. At about the same time one of our G3 laptop's boards crashed. You can guess the rest, the G4 now holds the G3's old drive, presto. I use that laptop for my old HyperCard materials and for Mac WordPerfect files. So, believe it or not, nearly everything here has a purpose. The office chair is mine. We bought it at an auction long ago. It's more comfortable than it looks. Good thing, I spend lots of time on it. The drawings on the wall are mostly my daughter's work. The stuff behind the iMac is mostly notes to myself along with some wistful thinking about motorcycles. Fortunately I don't really want another one but I will take a two-seater sports car.

Poster Session

2009-12-03T22:46:00.005-06:00

The Research Methods II class had their first ever poster session today. Students presented their research projects for about an hour in their classroom. Students from other classes and faculty viewed the posters and interacted with the authors.

In chapter 12, we describe some of the dynamics of poster presentation:

"Poster sessions usually take place in large rooms equipped with easels and large blank poster boards. Presenters are assigned a poster board, and they use it to post materials describing their research. After they post their materials, presenters stand next to their poster and wait for viewers (their audience) to file by. Interested viewers may pause, read the posted materials, and discuss them with the presenter. Poster presenters usually have copies of a complete report to give to those who are interested."

Here are some pictures of the event:

Kudos to Dr. Brittney Schrick, the new instructor of our Research Methods II class, for putting on the poster session.

Mascots and Autism

2009-11-11T23:12:00.007-06:00

Here is a report on a pilot project in Nebraska where autistic volunteers are dressing up in Frito-Lay inflatable costumes of Chester Cheetah. Keith Allen of University of Nebraska Medical Center and Scott Bowen of Signs and Shapes, a company that creates and produces inflatable costumes, are the collaborators.

The hope is that wearing the costume will allow the autistic volunteers to adopt a new identity while wearing the costume.

This is certainly a far out research idea. Hopefully it will work.

Redheads and Pain

2009-08-11T13:26:00.003-06:00

A recent article in the New York Times discusses the relationship between pain and having red hair. The problem is especially acute in dentistry. Redheads tend to avoid visiting the dentist because the usual does of analgesics (painkillers) are not effective.

The apparent cause seems to be the MC1R gene. In most people, that gene creates melanin. In redheads, however, the gene produces pheomelanin instead, causing red hair and fair skin. Another effect of pheomelanin is increased pain sensitivity, both for general and topical anesthesia.

Here's a research idea. Expose redheads and non-redheads to the cold pressor test, a standard laboratory test for pain using time as the dependent variable. Redheads, as a group, should remove their hands sooner.

Another Batch of Student Research Ideas: Summer 2009

2009-07-31T11:39:00.002-06:00

Here are the latest research ideas from my Research Methods I students:

Coach's Personality and Team Success
Drug Abuse and College Students: Drugs of Choice
Grade Inflation by College at Southern Arkansas University
Prevalence of Date Rape Among SAU College Students
Differences is Altruism Between Male and Female College Students
Traditional vs. Non-traditional Undergraduate College Students: GPA Differences
College Students from Divorced Homes Views on Marriage and Relationships
Does Participation in Greek Life Affect Male and Female GPAs Differently?
Does Regular Bible Reading Affect Pro-social Behaviors and Values?
Are Male College Students Less Faithful than Female Students?
Violent Criminal Family Histories: Effects of Parents Marital Status
Is Recidivism More Likely with Mild or Harsh Punishment?

Texting and Length of Relationship

2009-07-01T21:51:00.004-06:00

Modern love and romance seem inextricably linked to communication. But, I wonder is there too much of a good thing. Specifically, does texting predict relationship success?

I'm betting there's an inverse relationship, the more lovers text, the shorter their relationship will last.

A search of PsycINFO for "texting" found 24 hits, none closely related to relationship length. A couple did relate to a sexual topic, the use of texting to convey information about sexuality and risks of sex.

Someone, please test my hypothesis...

Jack Kramer Autograph Midsize Tennis Racquet

2009-06-20T20:57:00.002-06:00

Back in the 1980s, I played a lot of tennis. In 1984, I logged nearly 200 matches. Those days are long gone. But a couple of days ago, I went to hit some tennis balls with my 16 year-old-son. As we were leaving the house (naturally) he informed me that he had broken the strings on his and his sister's racquet and that the only one he had left was my old Wilson graphite racquet, the one I used back then.

So, I went into our spare room to look for some more racquets. I knew my wife had one still from back then. What I did not remember was my old, wood, Jack Kramer Autograph midsize. Click HERE for a picture of one (not mine).

I picked it up. It was not warped but the grip tape was probably 20 years old. When we got to the courts, I cut off the old tape and wrapped on a new grip tape. I let him hit a few off the wall, unimpressed he was. No me, I was impressed. That old racquet felt brand new. Long story short, I played well, felt good, and even started getting my serve in once I quit trying to kill it.

What's the research idea? Obviously, it would be to get tennis players to hit their racquets for accuracy and then compare them to the Kramer. All the usual research caveats would apply of course: counterbalancing, a sufficient number of trials, and control for fatigue.

I'll probably play again soon, and when I do it will be with Jack.

Earliest Primate Described

2009-05-20T23:50:00.007-06:00

Here's a bit of paleontological news. Researchers have just released news of a new, fossil primate: Darwinius masillae, discovered near Darmstadt, Germany. The fossil is both a new genus and new species, previously unknown to science. Click HERE to see the complete publication describing the new mammal.

Just in case you were wondering, the specimen is about 47 million years old and seems to be near the root of the line that eventually led to us: Homo sapiens. It is being labeled as a "missing link."

Here is what it looks like. Its actual size is about that of a small cat.

On Variability

2009-05-12T20:30:00.005-06:00

An important part of research methods is understanding concepts in measurement. Those include central tendency and variability. Of these, variability is more probably difficult to understand.

A couple of recent articles have highlighted the long-running longitudinal study, funded by W.T. Grant. One of those, in The Atlantic details many of the facets of his longitudinal study. Another, in the New York Times summarizes the work.

The study is remarkable because the 268 students were specially selected from the Harvard University classes of 1942, 1943, and 1944 for being among the most well-adjusted members of those classes (in other words, selected for their relative LACK of variability). Yet, over the years the life trajectories diverged incredibly. One member (John F. Kennedy) became president while another died after falling down a set of stairs, drunk.

Psychology is complex and individuals who may seem similar at one point in their lives may diverge from each other later for a wide variety of reasons. Finding those reasons is a goal of research.

APA Publication Manual 6th Edition Out in July

2009-04-24T10:28:00.011-06:00

In case you have not yet heard, the new Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association will be released in July.

One of the big changes from the 5th edition is coverage of issues related to computer technology:

dealing with supplemental data
referencing electronic sources
a new APAstyle Web page

Table of Contents

1. Writing for the Behavioral and Social Sciences

2. Manuscript Structure and Content

3. Writing Clearly and Concisely

4. The Mechanics of Style

5. Displaying Results

6. Crediting Sources

7. Reference Examples

8. The Publication Process

Appendices

Journal Article Reporting Standards (JARS)

Meta-Analysis Reporting Standards (MARS)

Flow of Participants Through Each Stage of an Experiment or Quasi-Experiment

References

Index

The new Publication Manual includes changes in:

Ethics

Simplified Heading Styles

Updated guidelines for reducing bias in language

New ways to report inferential statistics and revised table of statistical abbreviations

Ways to handle data sets and media

Displaying electronic data

Emphasis on DOI (Digital Object Identifier)

The Publication Process

Pre-order the Publication Manual HERE

Race/Ethnicity: Operational Definitions?

2009-04-15T13:37:00.007-06:00

A recent article in the Chronicle of Higher Education highlights the research of Inkelas, Soldner, and Szelenyi. They tested three approaches other researchers use to classify race or ethnicity.

The three approaches tested were:

Classify as biracial or multiracial
Classify multiracial persons as the least common of categories selected
Classify according to OMB categories

Their findings indicated that how researchers classified race or ethnicity could profoundly affect the results.

To us, this type of classification is an example of the importance of the operational definition. Recall our discussion of operational definitions on pp. 95-97 in chapter 4. On page 97, we write:

In the Know: Perhaps the most important step you can take if you want to move from confusion to confidence about a scientific topic is to find out how the concepts are measured. Knowing how schizophrenia, intelligence, or subjective well-being is measured gives you a big boost toward understanding the topic.

To that, we add that race and ethnicity are not easy to operationally define. Thus, one should be very cautious when comparing studies on those variables. Be sure YOU know what operational definitions the authors are using for race and gender.

Common APA Style Errors

2009-04-07T21:58:00.017-06:00

Every semester I see students make the same APA style errors over and over. Of course, I expect these errors but I also expect students to learn from my corrections; trial-and-success learning works.

In my classes (and as we note in chapter 11), I have students first write the Method section. I also have them include the Title Page. Here are some suggestions inspired by this semester's first drafts:

It's a plan; it should be written in the future tense.
The Title Page should follow the example in the APA Style Manual (p. 306)
Citations in text should follow examples in the APA Style Manual (p. 84)
All pages should be numbered and a short title included on the upper right header
The page numbers and short title should be added using the word processor's header function
Double space entire document
Use the spell checker
Use No Bold
Use No underline
Don't cross subsections

Participants subsection should only describe participants

Apparatus subsection should only describe equipment that will be used

Procedure section should only describe how data will be collected

Finally, will someone who is not familiar (e.g., friend, roommate, parent, etc.) with your proposed research understand what you wish to do?

Posters

2009-03-28T21:14:00.008-06:00

In chapter 12 we write about posters and how they have become the dominant method for conveying research results at psychology meetings. Today I put together a poster for the upcoming meeting of the Southwestern Psychological Association (SWPA) to be held in San Antonio, TX next week.

I had a conversation a few months ago with a colleague from the English Department. She's in charge of our school's first faculty research day to be held next Fall. The idea is to provide a hometown setting in which faculty who have published or presented research elsewhere to do it again on campus. She asked me about posters, apparently because they are rare at meeting of English faculty. So, I volunteered to handle the poster session for her (after sending her some pages from chapter 12, that is :-).

Here is the main graphic on the poster:

I compared the American Psychological Association's (APA) list of convention topics to the similar list of convention topics of the Association for Psychological Science (APS). The 39 topics in the green area above are the ones common to both lists. The 18 in the greenish-yellow area are the ones unique to the APA list and the 7 in the gray are unique to the APS list. Also on the poster are the APA and APS lists in alphabetical order as are an abstract (see below) and the topics that used before 1998 and the topics they use now.

My fingers are still sticky from the spray glue I used to assemble the poster. I'll be presenting it next week and hope to have some conversations with passersby about how these lists help us define psychology today.

Memory Cues

2009-03-19T04:03:00.002-06:00

My memory is an interesting thing. While I can remember events in the distant past, I often struggle to remember what I need to do day by day. Of course, Skinner (1983) covered this ground too.

Here I share some of the memory management techniques I use now that I have reached the ripe old age of 60. Skinner, by the way, was 78 when he delivered the talk that became the article referenced below. So, I'm getting a head start on Dr. Skinner.

Electronic devices, of course, are a boon to the memory impaired. Unfortunately, they require discipline and training in order to be effective. I possess one of the original PDAs, a USRobotics Palm Pilot. Unfortunately, I have long since ceased to use it. My simple Motorola cell phone has largely taken its place. On the cell phone, I can, should I chose to do so, set reminders and alarms for important appointments. I don't do so regularly, I must confess. Those who know me best, my colleagues and my children, either force me to set such an alarm; or, better yet just ask me for my phone and set the alarm themselves. That last technique is the one usually employed by my 11 year-old daughter. I am diligent, however, about capturing and storing other's telephone numbers on my cell phone. That, though, is a double edged sword; if I don't have my cell phone then there's no chance that I'll remember that stored number.

Routine is bliss for me, especially when it comes to not forgetting important things like my wallet, glasses, and keys. Thus, I have trained myself to hang my keys on a hook in my closet, place my wallet, checkbook, and small notebook all in the same shelf in that same closet. About once a month, nevertheless, I find myself sans wallet or checkbook because I have left them in the wrong place. Before I leave the house, I pat myself five places to check for wallet, pen, checkbook and notebook, keys, cellphone, and glasses. That self pat down usually saves me. For some yet-to-be understood reason, I leave my truck keys in the ignition about once a month. I rarely lock my truck, so that's not much of a problem. (No one is likely to steal my beat-up, green, 1976 Chevy.) Once, I did lock the truck with the keys in it, not good.

I nearly always wear a shirt with a breast pocket. That's were I nearly always carry my checkbook, notebook, and pen. I've managed such a degree of consistency that my family members all expect me to carry a pen at all times. The little notebook that I carry is a hard-back Moleskine (see www.moleskine.com). On it, I record all kinds of useful (to me, that is) information, such as the names of my girl's teachers. That way when I go to pick her up early from school I only need look in my notebook for their names. More transitory information I record on my fleshy "palm pilot" or the meaty part of my left hand under my thumb. There, for instance, go my golf scores and other short term notes. I transfer my golf scores to a calendar that I keep in my truck for more permanent storage.

Hopefully, these techniques will delay me hearing the words, "You are not really going old." (Skinner, 1983, p. 244). Of course, we are all growing older every day. The trick is to cope, somehow, with the ravages of time on memory.

Reference

Skinner, B. F. (1983). Intellectual self-management in old age. American Psychologist, 38(3), 239-244.

Science in the Modern World-After 37 years

2009-02-22T22:56:00.010-06:00

I am re-reading Whitehead's Science in the Modern World. As I thumbed through my copy, bought for Dr. Bill Wagman's history of psychology course at the University of Baltimore, I came across an old bookmark. It was an IBM library punchcard (you know, the ones that said: "DO NOT FOLD, SPINDLE OR MUTILATE) I had taken from another library book. The due date was July 13, 1972.

That was probably the last time I had looked at Whitehead's book. I recall it being particularly dense reading back then. Thus far, I have only re-read the first two chapters. I was struck this time, however, by sentences like: "There is no reason to doubt the intrinsic capacity of individual Chinamen (emphasis added) for the pursuit of science." (p. 6).

A few years after I had graduated, I visited Wagman and we talked about the book. He said then that he had stopped using it in his history class. Students no longer had the ability to comprehend it, he said.

Now, I'm reading it again. In a few weeks I'll report back on how MY comprehension fares.

Breaking Down Research Designs

2009-02-11T20:20:00.020-06:00

After a less-than-stellar set of test grades on chapters 7 and 8, I decided to re-explain the characteristics of research design. The test question was:

What is a design? What are its components?

In chapter 2, we state (p. 44): "The design of a research project includes the number of groups, how they are treated, and how the behavior is measured. The dependent variable, the independent variable, levels of the independent variable, and how extraneous variables are controlled are all aspects of research design."

In chapter 7, we introduce between-subjects designs and the extraneous variables of selection, differential attrition, and diffusion of treatment. In chapter 8, we introduce within-subjects designs and the extraneous variables of testing, instrument change, history, maturation, and regression (to the mean).

Let's break down design even further.

RESEARCH Type

Experiment
Quasi-experiment
Field Study
Naturalistic Observation
Participant Observation
Case Study
Interview
Focus Group
Oral History
Archival Study
Small N Study
Other

NUMBER of Groups (N)

One
Two
Three
Four
More

GROUPS

Between Subjects
Within Subjects
Mixed

VARIABLES

Independent (number, levels)
Dependent (number, quantitative or qualitative, continuous or discrete)
Extraneous (how controlled or not)

EXPLORATORY DATA ANALYSIS & STATISTICS

Graphs
Descriptive Statistics
Correlations
Confidence Intervals
NHST Tests and Significance (e.g., t-test, ANOVA, chi-square)
Nonparametric Tests (e.g., Mann-Whitney, Wilcoxon Matched-Pairs Signed Ranks, Spearman correlation coefficient)
Effect Sizes

CONTROLLING EXTRANEOUS VARIABLES

Via design
Via procedures

ETHICS

As we note in chapter 3, any design that fails to properly follow the current ethical standards is, by definition, a bad design.

So, there are many aspects to research design. Careful researchers devote much time toward perfecting their design and then pilot testing it before collecting data for real.

Are there laws of psychology?

2009-01-29T20:01:00.016-06:00

One of the factors that led Mjøset (2001) to differentiate social science from physical science was that the latter had succeeded in formulating laws of nature such as the second law of thermodynamics. (Those laws are undisputed, universal statements about how nature works.) He noted that many early psychologists hoped to formulate similar laws of nature within psychology. Unfortunately, no such laws have yet been discovered, nor may they ever be. In some ways, then, the physical sciences have far surpassed the social sciences because of the presence and reality of physical laws. The situation is somewhat similar between the biological sciences and the physical sciences too. It is impossible to find biological laws either. Some social scientists, notably Merton (1949), simply decided to continue practicing science and forgo any hope of discovering universal laws. In psychology, a similar story exists. It is impossible to find results that apply in any situation. Instead, results must be carefully couched within a disciplinary, subdisciplinary, or finer-grained contexts. There are no laws of psychology.

All is not lost however. Some results have stood the tests of time and of multiple replications. While the examples to follow fail to reach the criterion of a scientific law they serve to illustrate real and reliable psychological data. The first example is Ebbinghaus’ research on human memory. His 1885 book, Über das Gedächnis (Concerning Memory) caused a sensation when first published. He was the first to show the relationship between memory and the passage of time. Simply put, we forget much more quickly soon after learning and forget much more slowly thereafter. The figure below shows the relationship between memory and time.

Ebbinghaus’ discovery does not rise to the level of a scientific law because other conditions (e.g., practice) can alter the relationship between memory and time. So, the relationship is real and reproducible but it does not apply to all types of memory. A second example is Shepard and Metzler’s (1971) mental rotation research. In a laboratory setting, they projected pairs of geometric stimuli to human participants. While the stimuli were projected in two dimensions, they were designed to convey information in all three dimensions. Participants had to decide quickly whether the two stimuli were alike or different. The stimuli which were alike were presented from 0° up to 180° of rotation from each other in any plane. Like Ebbinghaus, they discovered a remarkably straightforward relationship between the amount of rotation and the time it took to decide. As the rotation approached 180°, participants took longer to decide. Moreover, the relationship was linear. See the figures below for examples of the stimuli used and the results Shepard and Metzler found. Pigeons, too, have been tested for their abilities to

mentally rotate objects. Unlike humans, pigeons are able make accurate mental rotations from various points of view (Köhler, Hoffman, Dehnhardt, & Mauck, 2005). Humans perform mental rotations best while in a normal, upright position. Pigeons, on the other, hand perform mental rotations equally well regardless of their spatial relationship to the stimulus. Flying, apparently, affects how pigeons make mental rotations. Thus, the results show that different species make mental rotations differently. Again, while the results of mental rotation experiments are replicable, they are not universal. The species tested makes a difference.

References

Köhler, C., Hoffmann, K. P., Dehnhardt, G., & Mauck, B. (2005). Mental rotation and rotational invariance in the rhesus monkey. Brain, Behavior, and Evolution, 66(3), 158-166.

Merton, R. K. (1949). Social theory and social structure. Glencoe, IL: Free Press.

Mjøset, L. (2001). Theories: Conceptions in the social sciences. In N. J. Smelser & P. B. Baltes, (Eds.). International encyclopedia of the social and behavioral sciences. 23, 15,641–15,647.

Shepard, R. N., & Metzler, J. (1971). Mental rotation of three-dimensional objects. Science, 171(3972), 701-703.

Psychology's Borders

2009-01-19T22:51:00.005-06:00

Gray (2008) notes that psychology fits neatly in the middle of nearly every academic discipline. The figure below shows how Gray places psychology in a central position with the natural sciences, social sciences, and humanities arrayed around it. He adds, “It would be impossible for people from any other department to draw a diagram nearly as elegant as mine that put their discipline in the center.” (p.30) I agree. The centrality of psychology creates borders between it and many nearby disciplines. Four disciplines: sociology, biology, computer science, and philosophy have especially intimate borders with psychology. Over time those borders have moved as well. Those border realignments are historically important to understanding 21st century psychology.

Psychology's central position in the academy is probably one reason why psychology courses and the psychology major are so popular.

Gray, P. (2008). The value of Psychology 101 in liberal arts education: A psychocentric theory of the university. Observer, 21(9), 29-32.

Zeitgeist of the Middle Ages

2009-01-12T23:23:00.003-06:00

I spent the Christmas holiday working on a book proposal and playing golf (also a little tennis). One of the things I'm sending publishers is a description of what it might have been like to live in the Middle Ages. The textbook is for the history of psychology course, in case you are wondering.

For those who do not know, zeitgeist is a German word that describes what it feels like to live in a particular time and place.

Here goes:

The Zeitgeist of the Middle Ages

Religion was probably the most important difference between then and now. For during the medieval period, religion thoroughly permeated every aspect of life to a degree almost unimaginable today. Yet, at the same time, daily life contradicted those same religious principles. Violence was endemic and justice uncertain. Life was seen as a temporary state, a trial leading to eternal salvation or damnation. Thus, efforts were few to reform social structures or to change behavior because, for the blessed, salvation awaited; and, for the wicked, damnation. Religion also stifled creative thought because God's plan had already been revealed. All human explanations had to account for Biblical truth and for religious dogma. The world and humankind were unique reflections of God's creation. The gradual sense of a loss of uniqueness caused later by Copernicus, Galileo, and Darwin were still far in the future.

Throughout the period, evidence of earlier Roman civilization still stood. Early in the period, a belief that the world was in decline must have been universal. Later, however, as new towns grew, and great cathedrals and castles were built such feelings probably abated some. However, our notions of constant and universal progress would probably have been unrecognizable. Instead of progress, stasis was a hallmark of the period. But, some technological change did take place, slowly. For example, the invention of the chimney allowed for the heating of individual rooms and served to separate the classes from the great common rooms before, where all huddled overnight around the only fire. Town clocks were built, and changed forever perception of time. In the service of war, metallurgy advanced.

Socially, the world was highly structured. The three estates consisted of the clergy, the nobility, and the rest of humanity. Within each estate, of course, large differences existed. The clergy had a special role given the religiosity of the period. The nobility are our main source of information about the period, because of their status. Comparatively little is known about the daily existence of peasants, but their lives can probably be safely assumed to reflect best the stasis of the period. Later in the period, as towns and commerce grew, a middle class developed. Jews, excluded from "proper" occupations, suffered throughout the period. Massacres, exiles, and discrimination were both common and viewed as righteous, given the Jews' alleged role as "Christ killers" and their subsequent refusal to adopt Christianity. In the same light, the Crusades seemed to make abstract sense, even though in a practical sense they were no testimony to Christian principles.

The universities of the Middle Ages were established to reconcile philosophy and theology. Early on in the history of universities, many of the religious orders opened houses of study. The course of study at the medieval university was much different than today's curriculum. The trivium, or introductory curriculum, consisted of three courses: grammar, logic, and rhetoric, while the quadrivium, or advanced curriculum, consisted of geometry, astronomy, arithmetic, and music. Books were all produced by hand and were, consequently, rare. Relatively few attended the university, and those came from the clergy or the nobility. (As an aside, the oldest universities are: Bologna, Paris, and Oxford)

So, life was far different during the medieval period than it is today. Yet, some of its vestiges still remain, such as superstitions and nursery rhymes. Zeitgeist yourself back to a medieval village. Imagine the smell of raw sewage flowing through the gutter in the center of the street. Think of the rigid class structure, the status of women, and the lives of children. Finally, examine how modern culture is descended from medieval culture, and what things have changed and what have not.

Fall 2008 Completed Research Projects

2008-12-18T21:33:00.008-06:00

Here's another batch of student research projects. This particular class did a very good job planning and executing their research over a two-semester time span.

Does noise affect the concentration and response time of college students? (A classic lab experiment in which participants had to complete a reading test while either listening to the sound of a jackhammer at 75db. No significant difference found.)
Baptist feelings toward science at a small Southern college over a 47-year span (A replication of a survey conducted in the early 1960s. Interestingly, 2008 respondents were significantly less likely to believe that: "It is possible to harmonize modern scientific findings with religious concepts?")
Reasons Facebook users accept friend requests from strangers (A low response rate led to insignificant results, nonetheless this remains an important topic.)
What makes a woman stay with her abuser? (Women from a local shelter and college students who responded to an e-mail request were surveyed. A small N led to nonsignificant results.)
Female perceptions of male intelligence based on first names (A partial replication of a 1993 study discovered that men with younger generation names [e.g., Matthew, William, and Ethan] were perceived as more intelligent than men with older generation names [e.g., Harry, Don, and Fred].)
Are cigarettes purchased more by males or females: Age and race effects (A field experiment at a local convenience store found that older, White males purchased the most cigarettes, younger, White males the most Skoal, and younger, Black males the most cigars.)
Who are more depressed: Black or White men? (A survey study using the Beck Depression Inventory found no differences with two groups of 25 male colleges students.)
A small campus study on classroom seating due to student gender (An observational study of where students sit in class by instructor gender, student gender, instructor race, and student race found that females are more likely to sit near the front of the class and more so when the instructor, too, is female.)
Are children in two-parent households more academically successful? (Conducted at a local school system, the research found no difference in student GPAs by household type.)

Please contact me if you are interested in further information about any of these research projects.

An Academic Pack Rat

2008-12-17T20:20:00.007-06:00

I was reading Mischel's column in the November APS Observer. In that column, Mischel speculated about why psychologists reviewing grants are so tough on each other. He noted that it is relatively easy to judge the methodology of a study, but that it is a lot more difficult to judge the importance of the work within the larger context.

Mischel referenced a 1973 American Psychologist article by Cartwright, Determinants of scientific progress. So, I walked out of my office into the lounge where we keep our American Psychologists and picked up Volume 23, Number 3 (March, 1973) and opened it up to page 222. Our in-house collection goes back to 1955 and is largely complete. It represents the personal collections of several faculty over many years.

Next, I read Cartwright's article which is about the risky shift and how it became an important topic in social psychology. Cartwright wrote (p. 223), "Interest in the field [the risky shift] was heightened further by the publication of a popular social psychology text by Brown (1965), which devoted an entire chapter to this research and proposed an ingenious explanatory scheme to account for the major results known at the time."

It just so happens that when I took social psychology in 1970 as my second-ever psychology course, Brown's text was the one used. I walked over to my bookshelf, picked up the volume and found the chapter, Group Dynamics, and read the several pages on Stoner's original research on what is now called the risky shift.

Then, I went to my one of my file cabinets and retrieved my notebook from that 1970 class. On May 4, 1970 we discussed in class what Brown called Stoner problems in the text. Certainly, I did not recall that class or our discussion. A few pages later, I noted Stoner's name among the others the class was supposed to know for the final exam. (The other names for that chapter were Sherif, Asch, and Bales.)

While scanning my old notebook I was struck by how many topics that had been covered in that class were now totally familiar to me: Calhoun's rat crowding study, LeBoeuf's elephant seals, Harlow's attachment research, Heider's balance theory, Gestalt psychology, the founding of the Royal Society, and many more.

When I first read Mischel's column and Cartwright's article, I wondered what I was doing in March, 1973. I recall I was a senior finishing up my undergraduate degree in psychology at the University of Baltimore. Certainly, I was not thinking about what makes a particular piece of scientific research important. The other thing I thought of was how nice it is to have old materials at hand. It reinforces my pack rat tendencies.

New-ro Psychology

2008-12-04T00:25:00.009-06:00

An article by David Glenn in the Chronicle of Higher Education, Psychology departments are changing their behavior (December 5, Volume 55, Issue 15, Page A1) discusses how research in psychology is changing because of neuroscience.

As we have noted earlier, the practice of science has become more of a team sport. Neuroscience is suited to groups of scientists working together because of its inherent complexity, large equipment costs, and necessity for specialization.

Like physics and biology before, psychology is now becoming "big science" and directors of research projects manage large budgets and supervises teams of scientists and assistants. Fortunately, according to Glenn, the emergence of neuroscience has, mostly, led to cooperation with older, traditional forms of behavioral psychology.

One exception, however, has been grant funding. Since 2004, the National Institute for Mental Health has changed its research priorities and now tends to fund research that has neuropsychological or genetic components. (Here is an article from APA on that topic.)

Glenn quotes Alan Kraut, APS's executive director, "Everybody, I think, would recognize that behavior is ultimately the result of biological, environmental, and genetic processes...But that doesn't mean that every study needs to have a biological component."

Clearly, psychology has entered a new era, one characterized by the search for the neurological causes of behavior. This is not a bad thing. However, it means that those who wish to research psychology will have to adapt and learn new ways to work together.

Utilitarian Views of Science

2008-11-28T14:27:00.004-06:00

James Williams recently wrote about training science graduates to become science teachers in the New Scientist (free registration required). He has surveyed 74 of his graduates and found that many fail to understand basic scientific concepts despite being good students and well versed in their respective disciplines.

For example, only 11% of his students knew what constituted a scientific fact. Many (76%) thought that scientific facts were the same as the words "truth" and "proven." On the other hand, most (61%) understood the definition of a hypothesis and its provisional nature.

Williams interprets his results as being due to a lack of history or philosophy of science courses. Most of his students were good scientists, he maintained, but were not aware of how science fit into the big picture. Williams also worries that the lack of historical and philosophical awareness may affect how scientists counsel policymakers about issues such as global warming and cloning. If the scientists cannot understand these issues, they will not be able to advise others.

In our first chapter, we explicitly attempt to situate psychology, historically and topically, within the broader framework of science. We also briefly cover the philosophy of science and feature sections on Karl Popper, Thomas Kuhn, and Paul Feyerabend. We strongly agree with Williams, science is more than learning methods and techniques. Scientists must be aware of how their discipline evolved and how their data fit into larger and important contexts. In other words, scientists should adopt something more than an utilitarian view of science.

Experimental Golf

2008-11-20T22:48:00.010-06:00

I have been playing golf for over five years. Because I teach research methods, I think of golf as a long-term research project. In other words, I'm always changing things: stance, grip, swing, speed, and who knows what else. From a research methods point of view, those things could all be be independent variables. Me, I'm always searching for a better combination of those variables so as to lower my score.

The score, of course, is the main dependent variable in golf. In stroke play (the most common form of keeping score) the player who takes the fewest strokes wins. In match play, the player who wins the most holes wins.

Over the last five years, I have discovered other golf dependent variables. One is the net number of balls lost or found. If I find more lost balls than I lose, I win. Another dependent variable is the number of pars (birdies if you are good or bogeys if you are not) per round. Other interesting dependent variables are how straight the ball flies or how far it goes.

Lately, my experimentation is progressing nicely. Golf being what it is, I should expect a sudden and rapid rise my stroke count.

Golf is also a good way to approach statistical topics. In class, I like to show the difference between my golf game and Tiger Woods'. Tiger has a MUCH lower standard deviation than I do for both direction and distance.

The good news is I am bringing my SD down for both distance and direction. Last week, I told a colleague about playing in the early morning fog. He asked me if I could tell whether or not the heavy, foggy air was making my shots shorter. I replied that my SD was still too big for me to answer that question. In other words, the distance I hit the ball is still too variable to conduct an experiment using the independent variable of air density.

To answer his question, I'd have to hit the ball the same distance and direction every time. Then, if I did that when the air was dry and the air was foggy, I could answer his question. There is a way to do that; use a machine to hit the ball consistently.

One machine that does that is called the Iron Byron:

It is named after famous golfer Byron Nelson who holds the record for most consecutive wins on the pro tour (11 wins). He also possessed an exceptionally smooth golf swing.

Now to figure out how to acquire an Iron Byron and get some one to pay for my golf research.

Einstein: The Rest of the Story

2008-11-18T15:49:00.017-06:00

In chapter 1, we briefly discuss the history of science and use John Horgan's idea of scientific surprises as an explanatory device. One of those scientific surprises is Einstein's theory of general relativity. We describe (pp. 15-16) how Eddington empirically confirmed Einstein's predictions:

In 1905 Albert Einstein (1879–1955) (Figure 1.6), an obscure Swiss patent examiner who was also a PhD candidate in physics, surprised the scientific world by publishing three extraordinary papers on physical phenomena. The first paper on the particle nature of light won him the Nobel Prize in 1921. One of the other two papers explained Brownian motion, the previously unexplained movements commonly observed in microscopic systems. Molecules themselves were causing the movement. The third paper eventually made him a worldwide celebrity; its topic was special relativity. In it, he demonstrated that time was a necessary fourth dimension to the three dimensions of space and that energy and mass were equivalent (E = mc²). When he extended that paper in 1915 to include gravity (general relativity) and when his theoretical predictions were later empirically confirmed, Einstein became a worldwide celebrity.

Figure 1.6 Albert Einstein

Einstein’s surprises were startling. His equations showed that time and space were not invariant, but that they changed depending on the motion of the observer. The equations also indicated that gravity warped space itself, a prediction confirmed by Edington’s observations of stars during a solar eclipse in 1919. At the atomic level, Einstein’s definition of light as quanta (small packets of light energy), led to the development of quantum mechanics, which was yet another scientific surprise. Like Galileo and Darwin before him, Einstein prompted a completely new worldview in which very small or very fast particles followed rules unlike any in the observable world.

Last night, the History Channel, broadcast a television documentary on Einstein which added much detail about the efforts empirical scientists underwent in order to confirm his predictions. That detail is provided by a new book, Einstein's Jury, by Jeffrey Crelinsten. In it, he shows how astronomers attempted to measure the predicted deflection of light caused by the Sun's immense gravity. Attempts were made in Crimea in 1914, but were interrupted by World War I. Another attempt was made by the Lick Observatory in America during the war. After the war ended, Eddington, a pacifist and a Quaker, thought that confirming Einstein's theory would do much to alleviate the deep discords between European scientists.

However, the solar eclipse of 1919 was observed by several groups of astronomers other than Eddington. Also, the Lick data, collected with second-rate equipment (the state-of-the-art telescopes were still in Russia, having been seized in 1914), showed that Einstein's prediction was wrong. News of Eddington's confirming but preliminary analyses made it to London at the same time that the Lick astronomers were about to announce the lack of agreement with the theoretical prediction. When they heard of the discrepancy, William Wallace Campbell, the head of the Lick group, delayed publication.

When Eddington fully analyzed the data, he confirmed Einstein's prediction that gravity did indeed deflect light, thus undermining classical Newtonian mechanics and making Einstein world famous, nearly instantly.

Here is the link to the December 2, 1919 New York Times story on Einstein and general relativity.

Irritating Phrases

2008-11-10T22:23:00.009-06:00

A new book, Damp Squid, lists the most irritating phrases in English. Written by Jeremy Butterfield, it documents many interesting facts about English words. Recently, the Telegraph listed Butterfield's collection of the ten most irritating phrases. Here they are in order:

At the end of the day (very British)
Fairly unique (It's either unique or not)
I personally (As opposed to...)
At this moment in time (Now)
With all due respect (I'm about to disrespect you)
Absolutely
It's a nightmare
Shouldn't of (Shouldn't have)
24/7
It's not rocket science (Does anyone remember when it was rocket science?)

Avoid phrases like the above in your writing. Think of other phrases that are equally irritating or trite. One of my pet peeves is "chomping at the bit," it should be "champing at the bit."

Finding the mot juste or just the right word is one of writing's pleasures.

Archive Fever

2008-10-14T00:25:00.014-06:00

Marianna Torgovnick recently wrote about archives in the Chronicle of Higher Education (Volume 55, Issue 2, Page B1). We cover archival research in chapter 10.

In her article, she reviews books, exhibits, and video materials and their use as archives. Her view of archives goes beyond our coverage of archives as sources of data for research.

She notes that Foucault's, The Archeology of Knowledge and the Discourse on Language and Derrida's, Archive Fever both note how dependent all of us have become on culturally-based archives such as driver's licenses and visas.

Torgovnick notes how much more archivally creative we have become in our electronic era. The ease by which all of us can now create video materials and post them on the Internet via YouTube and similar outlets has led to an explosion of new archival material.

In addition to these new archival outlets, she points out another phenomenon--pseudodocumentaries, a genre as old as Swift's Modest Proposal and as new as Borat.

So, archival research is much more than simply locating an archive and mining it for its data. On top of that, archives are disappearing too. Torgovnick shows that the usual suspects for the loss of archives, "fire, flood, war, and the passage of time" are also accompanied by other sources of loss such as the unrealized greater fragility of microfilm and microfiche compared to paper. The losses are compounded by the necessity for researchers to sift out "real" archives from those, somehow, less real.

Researchers desire archives that harbor no fiction, and such archives exist. However, lack of fiction is not the same as truth. Torgonovnick shows that people are a necessary link to archives and the story they tell. She worries what false truths our archives might reveal were we no longer around to interpret them.

Like other types of research, archival research requires a careful and diligent research to illuminate the data uncovered and to show what has not been uncovered or what still remains to be found.

I See Dependent and Independent Variables

2008-09-29T21:21:00.009-06:00

I see dependent and independent variables all day long. Years of study both at the undergraduate and graduate level combined with many more years teaching experimental psychology and research methods have worked their effect on me.

The other day, I was driving to Texarkana and saw cattle egrets along the way. In one field with cattle, there were many more egrets than in other fields. That observation started me wondering why that one field had so many more egrets than the others.

Were I to follow up on my observation, then the number of cattle egrets in each field would become a dependent variable in my research.

A few days later, I was walking around campus and I noticed that some parked cars had one current campus parking permit affixed to their rear windows. However, other cars had two or more parking stickers affixed. Now, an independent variable came to mind: the number of parking stickers on each window. In other words, I could now use those two groups to divide drivers into two naturally-occurring groups.

Very quickly, hypotheses began to form in my mind. Were the drivers with more stickers students who were illustrating their tenure on campus? Or, were they simply unable to easily remove the old stickers?

After being exposed to research methods classes and after designing and conducting research projects, the world takes on a new look. Dependent and independent variables pop out everywhere.

Confused about the difference between dependent and independent variables? I like to find the dependent variables in a study first. The dependent variables are the measurements in research. Also, all of the participants will be measured.

On the other hand, independent variables divide the research into groups. The groups can occur naturally or be operationally defined by the researcher. The levels of the independent variable will not be the same for all participants. In the example above, some drivers have one parking sticker while others have two or more. See?

Care and Feeding of Editors

2008-09-14T21:13:00.007-06:00

A recent column by Lynn Worsham in the Chronicle of Higher Education (September 8, 2008) discusses what academic journal editors look for in submissions to their journals.

She identifies several oft-made mistakes by authors:

submitting the wrong type of article to a journal
failing to proofread the submission for grammatical and careless errors
citing sources incorrectly
being unaware of previous similar research in the same journal and not citing it
not following specific submission requirements (e.g., # of copies or no return envelope)
submitting a conference presentation without rewriting it as a paper
arguing with editor over rejected submissions

Other suggestions included knowing the appropriate style manual followed by a particular journal, following the journal's rules exactly, and realizing that rejection was a fact of academic life.

In our chapter 12, we cover some of the steps necessary to take a research project to completion. Finishing a research project can mean more than one thing. It could mean presenting your results orally in class or in public. Ultimately, it could mean publishing your research in a peer reviewed journal. If that's your goal, pay attention to Worsham's suggestions.

Crows Recognize People? Dogs Recognize Cars?

2008-09-04T22:46:00.006-06:00

I have a fondness for field research. John Marzluff of the University of Washington and his colleagues observed that the crows they had trapped previously in order to band them for identification seemed to be harder to catch later.

So, they decided to test that hypothesis by conducting a field experiment. Three researchers, Marzluff and two students, then wore a caveman mask and trapped and released seven crows. Later, whenever one of the three wore the map on campus, the crows scolded them severely.

However, whenever they walked on campus wearing another mask (a Dick Cheney mask), the crows ignored the wearers. This, of course, was the control condition.

It seems, thus, that crows recognize people who catch and handle them and remember them later. Other researchers, too, have seen similar behaviors in crows and related birds. See a New York Times article for more information.

Informally, I have conducted similar exercises. I like to watch my dogs when I pull up in a rental car. Invariably, they bark at me viciously from behind the living room windows. They stop barking after I exit the rental car and start to walk toward the front door. Also, I have often sat outside in the afternoon while the dogs walk around in the front yard. I watch carefully for cars while I wait. I don't want to explain to my children why their dogs were run over. Interestingly, when I see my wife a block away and go to protect the dogs, they hear her van approaching and start to run in its direction (something they do not do for other vehicles).

So, it seems that dogs and birds can recognize and remember things about us.

Genes and Child Development

2008-08-25T21:39:00.009-06:00

Newsweek recently published an article featuring some of the latest research in developmental psychology. Interestingly, specific gene loci may be responsible for many of the behavioral differences seen in children.

Temperament, for example, has a strong genetic link with associated behavioral consequences. Children with easy temperaments are less likely to pay attention to their parents and to listen to them. Fussy children, on the other hand, are more likely to pay close attention to their environment (including their parents) and are, thus, more likely to learn from experience.

The article discusses genetic variations other than the mellow/fussy baby. The gene FADS2, for example, raises IQ scores for babies who have been breast fed. However, the "C" variant of the gene, possessed by about 10% of babies, does not lead to a similar rise in IQ scores. Another gene, MAOA, comes in "sluggish" and "active" forms. The sluggish version of that gene seemingly protects victims of abuse from later risky behavior because memories of the trauma are damped by that version of the gene. The active version, unfortunately, rekindles the traumatic memories and may lead the victim into alcohol or drug abuse as a coping mechanism. Another gene, DRD4, has been linked to a variety of behaviors from increasing coping behavior in children and increased sexuality.

The implications this line of research are varied. For one thing, it multiplies the amount of individual variation previously suspected. For another, it causes researchers and practitioners to look more closely for genetic causes for behavior. Finally, it makes the entire behavioral picture much more complicated than previously thought.

Coffee Research

2008-08-15T20:30:00.009-06:00

I never drank much coffee before entering graduate school at LSU in Baton Rouge. Early in my first year I noticed two coffee urns at the end of the cafeteria line marked "Light" and "Dark." I turned to Pete Spiliotis, my predecessor in Don Hoffeld's lab, and asked the difference. He explained that dark was short for dark roasted or french roasted coffee, and that I should try a cup. I did and I was hooked.

By the time I left LSU for Milwaukee five years later, I was a Community Dark Roast coffee addict. So much of an addict that I had to order coffee by the case from Baton Rouge. In Milwaukee, I created a few coffee addicts including David Blackwelder, one of the grad students. One day he came into work complaining that he'd been awake all night. Seems he'd been drinking strong brewed dark roast into the wee hours. When I moved to Magnolia, Arkansas in 1980, I noticed that the local groceries stocked Community Dark Roast. I guess because we were only twenty miles from the Louisiana line. Since then, I have switched to Community's New Orleans blend. It adds chickory to the grounds.

Every year, the local schools hold their Red Ribbon week urging students not to do drugs. Alas, I cannot wear that red ribbon. I drink coffee for the kick. I tried going cold turkey a couple of years ago. That lasted about a week or less. It was my students who insisted that I start drinking again. They could not stand my coffee-free self, it seemed.

So, it was not passing interest that called me to read a recent New York Times article about coffee research titled, "Sorting out coffee's contradictions" by Jane E. Brody. She nicely summarizes coffee's myths and health benefits.

Among the myths are: coffee is not a diuretic, does not cause heart disease, hypertension, cancer, bone loss, or weight loss. Among the health benefits are: enhanced mood, performance, alertness, decreased reaction time, fat burning (instead of carbohydrates), lowered risk of Parkinson's and Type 2 Diabetes.

Whew, I guess I'll have another cup.

Summer Research Ideas

2008-08-08T18:29:00.003-06:00

Another research method class has come and gone. I thought I'd share their research ideas:

Is shyness more common in males or females?
An interpretation of Rap: What we see is what you get
Wet vs. Dry: Opinions about liquor in Conway, Arkansas
PTSD: More common after combat or peace keeping missions
What makes a woman stay with her abuser?
Reasons why Facebook users accept friend's requests from strangers
Sports drinks and physical endurance
Noise effects on concentration and response time of college students
Teenage female marijuana use as a gateway to other drugs
Parenting: Do you parent differently from how you were parented?
Postpartum depression in married vs. single mothers
Witnessing domestic abuse as a child: Are such men more abusive to their spouses
Links between childhood abuse and adult domestic violence

This class did an exceptional job in presenting their research plans recently. Congratulations.

Elizabeth Loftus

2008-06-22T12:36:00.007-06:00

This is additional material from the "cutting room floor." Originally, we thought of including examples of extremely successful scientists as a way of wrapping up chapter 1, Science. Here is our short biography of one such successful psychologist, Elizabeth Loftus.

Elizabeth Loftus currently holds joint faculty appointments. She is distinguished professor of psychology and social behavior at the University of California-Irvine and is affiliate professor of psychology and law at the University of Washington. Loftus received her BA from UCLA in 1966 and her PhD from Stanford in 1970. She began her academic career at New School University in 1970. From 1973 till the present she has worked at the psychology department at the University of Washington. In 1984, she began to serve as a law professor there too. In 2002, she was named distinguished professor at the University of California- Irvine as well (where she spends most of her time). Loftus is the author of 18 books and more than 250 articles. She has served on many editorial boards and as officer of several professional associations including the presidency of the American Psychological Society. She has also served as an expert witness on human memory in hundreds of legal cases.

At age 14, Loftus lost her mother to a drowning accident. To this day she believes that event marks a profound division in her life. Ever since that day, Loftus has seen herself as an agent for helping others. As an undergraduate at UCLA, she excelled at both math and psychology. Like Robert Sternberg, she attended Stanford and studied psychology. She married Geoffrey Loftus in graduate school. After graduating, he went to work at the University of Washington and she followed a year later (turning down an assistant professorship at Harvard to do so). Their marriage lasted 23 years, “...an accomplishment...” according to Loftus, given her work ethic. They are still friendly. Loftus fell into her first major research topic, eyewitness memory, because she wanted her research to have practical applications, and it has.

Early in her academic career (around 1972), Loftus was studying memory using pictures as stimuli. After a conversation with a man who had been convicted of killing someone in self–defense she began to use films of accidents as experimental stimuli. What she found surprised her. The participants who viewed the films gave her different answers depending on how she phrased the questions she asked them. The relationship between leading questions and eyewitness memory became her first major research project. She found that leading questions influenced eyewitness memory and that a large percentage of eyewitnesses (in her lab) insisted they had seen something that, in fact, they had never seen. They had, however, heard that thing mentioned while being questioned in an intentionally leading manner. For example, nearly 20% of participants claimed to have seen a barn in one of her films. In reality, there was no barn and only those who had been earlier asked a leading question about the non-existent barn claimed to have seen it. In 1999, the United States Department of Justice published guidelines on gathering eyewitness testimony in criminal investigations that stemmed directly from Loftus’ research. Those recommendations call for law–enforcement personnel to avoid the use of leading questions and to place only one suspect in a line-up. Loftus’ eyewitness reliability research has been called one of the best examples of how psychological research can affect public policy (Foxhall, 2000).

Later, Loftus began to study the difference between repressed memories and false memories. Repressed memories are true memories that have become unconscious for a time and then re-appear. Repressed memories of child abuse are a common example. However, some memories that appear to be repressed are not true, they are false memories. Although false memories are not true, the person believes them to be true. After observing a link between some therapists and the subsequent revelation of incriminating memories by their patients, Loftus demonstrated that false memories could be induced in a small percentage of individuals (See Chapter 3 for a more complete discussion of this research.). Her research ignited a legal and psychological controversy. Because of the large number of criminal cases based upon repressed memories, Loftus began to testify as an expert witness on human memory at hundreds of trials including those of the Hillside Strangler, O. J. Simpson, Rodney King, the Menendez brothers, and the Oklahoma City bombing. Her success in defending people accused of crimes like murder and child–molestation has created enmity from prosecutors, their witnesses, and even the public. Because of her research, her public appearances often require security personnel to be present. Her work has caused her hardship and grief while also bringing her fame and prestige. Recently, she was named as one of the top 100 most eminent psychologists of the 20th century (and the top ranked woman) putting her in the company of Freud, Skinner, and Piaget.

Reference

Foxhall, K. (2000). Suddenly, a big impact on criminal justice. Monitor on Psychology, 31 Retrived September 8, 2006 from http://www.apa.org/monitor/jan00/pi4.html

Theory in Biology

2008-06-10T23:07:00.013-06:00

One of the early drafts of chapter 1 addressed the issue of theory in biology (a little) more deeply than the final draft of the book:

"Unfortunately, the nature of biological and social science is such that it is impossible to simply apply physical science’s way of theorizing to them. In biology, the problem is that natural history plays a major role. All life on Earth evolved. It is simply not possible to experiment with living systems as it is with physical systems. In social science, the main problems are consciousness and the sheer number of possible causal variables. Neither biology nor social sciences have discovered any laws similar to those of the physical sciences. Even Darwin’s theory of evolution is basically a historical account coupled with a small handful of causal mechanisms such as common descent, natural selection, sexual selection, and gradualism. In psychology, the search for ideal theories of behavior has been unsuccessful and has led to modifications to ideal theory."

Contrast the passage above to what survived the cutting room floor in the final draft:

"The success of physical science and its theories has been so spectacular that biologists and social scientists naturally tried to imitate them. However, theories in biological science and social science differ considerably from the ideal theories in physical science. Unfortunately, the nature of biological and social science is such that it is impossible to simply apply physical sciences's way of theorizing. Neither biology nor social science has yet discovered any laws as universal as those of the physical sciences (p. 26-27)."

A recent article (free registration required) in TheScientist.com by Eric Smith addresses some of the differences between biological and physical theorizing. Much of the article deals with whether or not evolutionary theory should occupy such a central position in biological theorizing. I'll ignore much of that argument and only cover the more fundamental differences in the two types of theorizing.

Smith gives four ways in which biological theory is different from physical theory. He also points out that none of the following features of biological theory are common in physics. Let's looks at the four features one by one.

1. Contingency: Smith uses contigency in a way similar to replication. He notes that unlike in the physical sciences, it is impossible to repeat the results of evolution by "replaying the tape." In fact, nearly everyone agrees that were the Earth to undergo a replay of the last 5 billion or so years the results would be very different. Those differences, of course, don't come from evolution or its mechanisms. (In fact, evolution itself is a product of our natural history. In any replay, there is no guarantee that evolution itself would again emerge. The smart money, most likely, would be against such a re-emergence.) Instead, the differences in the replay would come from unforeseen and unpredictable events such as meteorite impacts and other catastrophes.

2. Memory: To Smith, memory encompasses the creation of systems that can reliably reproduce the information contained within them. That mechanism, of course, is carried out by RNA and DNA and is quite remarkable in its ability to reproduce the information and to act upon the results of that information. Smith notes just how difficult it is to create memory systems that have survived for millions of years.

3. Control: In control, instructions mostly flow in one direction with incomplete feedback. In biological systems, natural selection functions as one controlling process. Only a few biological designs survive to reproduce themselves. In systems created by humans control is necessary too. However, we have had little luck as yet in constructing control systems able to repair and maintain themselves. In contrast, living systems can repair and maintain themselves while they are alive.

4. Individuality: Evolution and genetics end up creating unique individuals composed of common elements. Our 30,000 genes are shuffled to create individuals who are all different (excepting identical twins). The odds of two individuals sharing the same genetic components are incredibly small, on the order of 1 in 70 trillion. Smith notes that sheer numbers prevent biologists from looking at individuals. Instead, they seek out underlying "regularities" in living systems such as the citric acid cycle.

Biology, thus, has a different set of scientific questions than does physical or social science. One of the most profound of its questions is how life emerged from non-living processes. The nature of biology forces its theorists to adopt different modes of theorizing. Like social scientists, biologists, too, must seek their own ways to create theories and not simply ape the physical sciences.

Constraints to Theory in Social Science

2008-06-08T21:35:00.013-06:00

In chapter 1 (page 26) we begin our discussion of theories in science by first describing the ideal theories of physical science. In the text, we characterize those theories as "laws of nature" and show how they seek laws that explain physical phenomena universally. Thus, the Second Law of Thermodynamics or the Law of Gravity work on Earth and everywhere else.

Upon re-reading The Arrow of Time, I noted that Layzer described laws and constraints thusly:

"Laws and constraints are complementary aspects of the physicist's description of nature. Laws describe the regularities underlying phenomena; they are few in number and each applies over a wide domain. Constraints serve to select from the set of all events governed by a given law the particular phenomenon of interest. The laws define what is possible, the constraints what is actual or relevant. (p. 58-59)"

He lists the constraints as well: they are initial conditions, boundary conditions, and symmetry conditions. Social science theories, too, are governed by the same constraints.

Initial conditions will constrain much of what a social science theory can explain or what interventions can be made to a social system. My colleague, Tommy Milford (a social worker), is especially sensitive to the description and implementation of initial conditions in his work because he realizes how important initial conditions are. Well thought out interventions, for example, may fail if they are applied without regard to initial conditions.

In physical science, boundary conditions may reflect a number of possible solutions, typically associated with different, corresponding differential equations. In social science, however, boundary conditions are more likely to be akin to the natural boundaries we describe in law-oriented theories (p. 28). Law-0riented theories are highly restricted by those naturally-occurring boundaries so that, for example, theories in cognition are not likely to shine much light on the area of personality. Furthermore, theories that attempt to address issues is such disparate areas are likely to be weaker than theories that stick to their knitting within their natural boundary conditions.

The discovery of symmetry in physical science is key to any argument for universality. If phenomenon is symmetrical, then it is true regardless of the observer's point of view. In social science, questions of symmetry revolve (again) around natural boundaries. We speak of gender, culture, class, and race as examples such natural boundaries (or symmetries). Social science data that transcend those boundaries are more universal than data that are not. Often, (think of culture) we are unable to break out of the prison imposed by our asymmetrical view of the world, often leading to tragic results. (Assuming, for example, that American troops would be greeted as liberators.)

To conclude, considering initial conditions, boundary conditions, and symmetry conditions is important in social science theorizing. The real world often imposes those constraints. Failing to see them or to account for them can lead to deficient theorizing.

Self-selection?

2008-05-21T23:34:00.023-06:00

In chapter 7 we introduce the extraneous variable of selection. Self-selection is a form of selection that occurs when people choose to do one thing and not another. A good example is when high school students choose to drop out of school.

An uniformed or naive researcher might draw the wrong conclusion when presented standardized test scores of 9th graders and 10th graders if a large proportion of the students dropped out of school when they turned 16 years of age. Assume that the 16 year olds who dropped out had lower standardized test scores and also assume that the law required them to attend school until they turned 16. In that scenario, the 10th grade AVERAGE scores would rise because the scores of the students who dropped out would no longer be included.

However, if a researcher did not know that the 9th and 10th grades were different to start with because of self-selection, he or she might look for another explanation. Using this example as an introduction, look at this recent news story from the Boston Globe about self-selection by gender in scientific, engineering, and technical fields.

This article examines a controversial area in contemporary culture, the relative imbalance of males over females in scientific, engineering, and technical fields. This imbalance may have many causes. As a recent New York Times article noted, gender discrimination and sexual harassment (both quid pro quo and hostile environment) are much more common in scientific, engineering, and technical fields.

The Boston Globe story, however, highlights the research of an economist, Joshua Rosenbloom of the University of Kansas. He decided to study men and women in the area of information technology. He and his co-authors found that men and women who enjoyed working with tools or machines were the most likely to choose a career in information technology. Also, people who enjoyed working with people turned out to be less likely to choose a career in information technology. His research, with co-authors Ronald A. Ash, Brandon Dupont, and LeAnne Coder was published in the Journal of Economic Psychology. They concluded that self-selection was the main reason for the paucity of women in information technology positions.

Of course, self-selection is not the only factor operating here. The interesting new finding is that self-selection may play a large role than previously imagined in the career choices of men and women. Also mentioned in the Boston Globe article is the research of Susan Pinker. She has found that in societies with the greatest amount of personal freedom, women opt for jobs not typically held by men, thus contributing to the disparity in occupational choice. Paradoxically, the proportions of women working such jobs is highest in countries with lower levels of individual freedom, and yes, in those societies the disparity in the jobs between men and women is less. Here is a link to a New York Times review of her book: The Sexual Paradox: Men, Women, and the Real Gender Gap.

Gender studies are a fertile field for social scientists and present them with many opportunities for conducting research and for teasing out the interactions between multiple sources of causation. However, some of those sources may be due to internal factors such as personal preference.

Another Batch of Research Ideas

2008-05-14T11:55:00.005-06:00

My Experimental Psychology (PSY 402) students at Texas A&M University-Texarkana (where I occasionally serve as an adjunct instructor) have come up with the following ideas for research and completed prospectuses for them. I thought I'd share them with you:

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder Among Iraqi War Veterans Completing One or More Tours
Is There any Difference Between African-American and Caucasian Women in Weight and Health Consciousness?
Education Level and Occurrence of Mental Illness Among Veterans: An Archival Study
Domestic Violence: Women Violated by Men
Who Faces More Job Stress, Correctional or Police Officers?
Effortless Learning? Memory Capability in Sleep
Religion and Infidelity Among African-American and Caucasian-American Males
Effect of 8-Session Hypnosis Training on Chronic Pain Levels
Effects of Childhood Sexual Abuse on Later Adolescent and Adult Sexual Functioning
What Causes People to Physically Harm Themselves?
Gender and Religion: Effects on Support of Capital Punishment
Likelihood of Abused Children Becoming Child Abusers
College Students' Self-Diagnosis of Depression: Results fromPsychology, Nursing, Business, and English Majors
Sexually Transmitted Diseases: Prevalence in Rural and Urban Populations
Presence of Music and Exercising Effort in Traditional College Students
Does Perception of Old Age Change over the Lifespan?
Likelihood of Suicide Among Adolescents Taking Prescription Antidepressant Medications
Education Within a Correctional Facility: Does it Reduce Recidivism?
Do People with Dyslexia Share the Same Personality Traits?
Abused Children: Levels of Aggression Following Counseling
Will Employees Quit Their Jobs if Employer Becomes a Tobacco-free Facility?

Recall that I strive to get students to pick topics that interest them so they can sustain their interest in the task of creating a prospectus over the course of the semester. Also, I believe the topics students choose make an interesting barometer revealing what students think about when given the opportunity.

Concrete or Abstract?

2008-04-27T21:50:00.010-06:00

Concrete examples or abstract examples? I have struggled with this issue in lectures and in writing. Usually, I opt for concrete example first followed by the more general, abstract case.

My rationale for this approach has been the results from the Wason Selection task. That logical problem (If P then Q, if Not P then Not Q is the solution to both cases) is solved much, much more often in its concrete form (~75% of the time) than in its abstract form (~5% of the time). Here is a site that explains this problem.

However, recent research from the Ohio State University (as reported in the New York Times) in mathematics education suggests that teaching the abstract first is far superior to teaching the concrete first in mathematics problems. This research was recently reported in the journal Science. The authors are Jennifer A. Kaminski, Vladimir M. Sloutsky, and Andrew F. Heckler.

To me, the discrepancy between the Wason Selection data and the Kaminski et. al data indicates that further research is needed. I agree that flying by the seat of one's pants is not a good idea here. It would be nice for teachers to know, once and for all, which strategy is best.

By the way, I sometimes use an abstract first strategy. Recall my earlier post on the Mastermind game. There I use an abstract first-first strategy to teach about main effects and interactions.

The Kilo in Crisis

2008-04-16T20:58:00.011-06:00

Here's a recent story from the Los Angeles Times.

It tells about how the various standard kilograms around the world are no longer standard. When these kilogram weights were checked against the standard kilogram in Paris (made of platinum-iridium), they no longer weighed the same.

Here is a link to a picture of the standard kilogram. The kilogram is the last physical standard that is still defined in reference to a physical object. Originally, the kilogram was defined as the mass of a cube of water with sides equal to 10 centimeters. No one knows why the standard kilograms are losing weight, but the loss has led to a search for alternative standards. One approach is to construct a very sensitive magnetic balance, another is to actually count the atoms of a particular element.

All other standard units are defined in other ways, without reference to physical objects. The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) defines the other standards. CLICK HERE to see all of their definitions and the historical context that led to the definitions. The NIST's definitions of the meter, the second, and the candela are reproduced below.

"The meter is the length of the path traveled by light in a vacuum during a time interval of 1/299,792,458 of a second." Originally, the meter was defined as 1/10,000,000 of a quarter of the earth’s circumference.

"The second is the duration of 9,192,631,770 periods of the radiation corresponding to the transition between the two hyperfine levels of the ground state of the Cesium 133 atom." Originally, the second was defined as 1/86,400 of the mean solar day.

"The candela is the luminous intensity, in a given direction, of a source that emits monochromatic radiation of frequency 540 x 1012 hertz and that has a radiant intensity in that direction of 1/683 watt per steradian." Originally, the candela was the light given off by a standard candle (candela is Latin for candle).

One of the fundamentals of science is measurement. As sciences became more and more developed, the need for precision became more acute. So, redefining the kilogram is a real crisis is science.

2009 Regional Psychology Association Meetings

2008-04-08T10:41:00.008-06:00

In chapter 12 we discuss scientific meetings and more specifically, the meetings of the regional psychology associations.

Martha Boneau at APA just sent me the 2009 dates and locations of those meetings. Here they are:

2009 Meetings of the Regional Psychological Associations (sorted by date)

Feb 18-21, 2009
Southeastern Psychological Association (SEPA)
New Orleans, LA
http://www.sepaonline.com/

March 5-8, 2009
Eastern Psychological Association (EPA)
Pittsburgh, PA
http://www.easternpsychological.org/

April 2-4, 2009
Southwestern Psychological Association (SWPA)
San Antonio, TX
https://www.swpsych.org/

April 16-18, 2009
Rocky Mountain Psychological Association (RMPA)
Albuquerque, NM
http://www.rockymountainpsych.org/

April 23-26, 2009
Western Psychological Association (WPA)
Portland, OR
http://www.westernpsych.org/

April 30 - May 2, 2009
Midwestern Psychological Association (MPA)
Chicago, IL
http://www.midwesternpsych.org/

Oct 9-10, 2009
New England Psychological Association (NEPA)
Worcester, MA
http://www.nepa-info.org/

Statistics: Then and Now

2008-04-08T00:50:00.007-06:00

I must in a retrospective and nostalgic mood. I remember how I used to have to compute statistics back in graduate school. During my first year, I recall when the statistics class first walked into the department's calculator room. Imagine a room full of calculators that looked like the one below.

This is a Monroe brand rotary calculator. I doubt that I could use one today, but back then I learned to be pretty good at it. The calculations had to be recorded on large pieces of paper. I still have some of those calculations in my files. (But then, I also still have my first grade report cards too. I'm a bit of a pack rat.)

On the first day in the calculator room, we were all warned not to divide by zero. Recall that dividing any number by zero yields infinity. If a Monroe calculator was set to divide by zero, it would continue to chug until someone pulled the plug.

Before I went to graduate school, I invested in my own calculator, a Texas Instruments SR-10 model. It cost me $149, plus tax. The beauty of the SR-10, was that it could calculate square roots. Interestingly, I had to return my first SR-10; it had a missing decimal point in the display between the 1,000s and 10,000s. My roommate, an engineer, and I discovered the faulty decimal display when I could not figure out why my homework problem kept coming out wrong. Here is a picture of the SR-10. Note the square root button. The display was red LEDs. Here's a link to more information on the SR-10.

My roommate, the engineer, was an early adopter of a more expensive early calculator, the HP-35. He paid nearly $400 for it. The HP calculators used a different method for accepting numerical input: RPN or reverse Polish notation. I never liked having to use that system because it required me to learn a new way to think about math problems. Here is a link to a page on the HP-35.

The Texas Instrument calculators, on the other hand, used familiar algebraic rules for inputting data. I'm sure that alone led to many sales compared to the HP family.

Today, these calculator are only seen in museums. Statistical calculators, too, appeared and are still available today, but at much cheaper prices. Most statistical calculations now, however, are made on specific computer applications. SPSS, SAS, R, and Statistica are commonly used statistical computer applications.

It's interesting to me how quickly students (and faculty) adapt to new technologies. However, it seems that students are remarkably blasé about past technologies. So, I guess part of my job is to remind them.

Taking Care of Rats and Pigeons: 1972-3

2008-04-04T20:56:00.008-06:00

My last post reminded me of my undergraduate days and when I had the responsibility for the rat and pigeon lab at the University of Baltimore. The lab is no more, and that space is now an administrator's office, seems fair :-)

Our lab housed about a dozen albino rats and half as many pigeons. I was (and still am) allergic to rat dander, so I had to wear a filter mask. My job was to feed and water the animals and to clean up after them. For that, I earned minimum wage which was $2.40 an hour.

A couple of incidents still come to mind. One was the only day I was ever bitten by a rat. That happened on the day the experimental psychology class first came to meet their rats. In retrospect, it seems obvious what happened. The rats were all nervous, probably in response to the students' own anxiety, and one took it out on me. He got my left index finger. Fortunately, his upper teeth hit my fingernail, so only his lower teeth broke the skin. For a few seconds, I had a half pound white rat attached to my finger while blood streamed everywhere. After he let go and fell, I caught him and put him back in his cage. Then, I got some first aid.

The other incident involved a pigeon. I learned how to catch a loose pigeon. The lab was windowless by design, so I could control the amount of light in the room. So, one of the pigeons got loose one day and was flying around the room. Fortunately, I remembered my mentor's advice, "Wait for him to land, then turn out the lights, sneak up on him and grab him." So, I watched and when the pigeon landed on the lens of the overhead projector, I turned off the lights and slowly approached. Slowly, I placed my hands around where I imagined him to be and closed the distance between dexter and sinister (my right and left hands for the Latin-impaired) and grabbed him. Back to the light switch, one pigeon nabbed.

Pigeons, possessing eyes with cones only, are effectively night blind. So, once the lights go out they are very unlikely to move. Ahh, the good? old days.

Animal Research: Then and Now

2008-04-03T21:00:00.008-06:00

You may have noticed that we say very little about animal research in our text. That is strange because we both come from animal research backgrounds. Much has changed in animal research over the course of our careers. There is much less animal research going on in psychology than there was 40 years ago.

There are several reasons why animal research is less common now. The most obvious, perhaps, is the rise of the animal rights community, notably PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals and similar groups. I attended the 1990 APA convention where PETA exhibited a float outside of the Washington Hilton Hotel depicting the horrors of animal research. At that same meeting, demonstrators disrupted presentations, including one by Neil Miller at which I was in the audience.

Another reason for the decline of animal research in psychology is money and still another is more outside regulation. The price of animals has risen as has the price of housing and caring for them. In addition, new regulations (which we cover in chapter 3) have made it more difficult to maintain existing animal facilities and nearly impossible to start new ones.

Sally Boysen's chimpanzee research is an apt example. (See this link to Scientific American Frontiers for more information.) Her research, valuable as it was, ended up a victim to costs, regulations, and more. Her university closed down the lab and sent the animals to Texas. Boysen chained herself to the door of the lab before the move, but that action, dramatic as it was, changed nothing. Here is a news story about the closing of her lab.

The impetus for this post, however, is an upcoming book: The Animal Research War by P. Michael Conn and James V. Parker, to be published by Palgrave Macmillan in May 2008. Here is a link to the publisher's page about that book. Here is an link to an excerpt, you may have to register (for free) before being allowed to read it. If you are interested in animal research, I recommend the excerpt highly.

All things change, including psychology. Animal behavioral research is still valuable, I think. Certainly, the assault from PETA and others forced changes too. Some of those changes were probably needed. For instance, undergraduates taking physiological psychology courses probably don't need to sacrifice and dissect a rat's brain in order to learn how brains work. Obviously, graduate students in physiological psychology do need to learn such techniques. The winds of change blow and we usually don't know what kinds of changes they will bring. Less animal research in psychology was one of them however.

Participant Observation vs. Undercover Investigations

2008-03-30T23:27:00.009-06:00

Whenever I teach about participant observation (chapter 10), I nearly always get a question about how participant observation research compares with police undercover investigations.

The first thing I say is that the goal of research is to collect empirical data for scientific purposes. Whereas the goal of an undercover investigation is to collect evidence of a crime. Thus, at the outset there is a big difference in the goals of each.

In participant observation, an IRB must first review the prospectus of the research and decide whether any ethical problems exist. If ethical problems exist, the IRB must provide some guidelines on how to handle them. I like to tell the story of Jim Quinn, a member of the Department of Rehabilitation, Social Work, and Addictions at North Texas State. For his PhD research, he joined the Bandidos motorcycle gang in Miami. That research was also reported in his article:

Quinn, J. F. (1987). Sex roles and hedonism among members of`outlaw' motorcycle clubs" Deviant Behavior, 8, 47-63.

He had to cut his research short because he became convinced that if he remained in the club he would become party to a crime. Ethically, a scientist cannot use the conduct of research as an excuse to participate or be party to criminal acts.

Let's now look at undercover investigations. Recall, the goal here is to find evidence of criminal activity and to, later, prosecute it. Ethics is a concern here too. What are the permissible activities that an undercover officer may participate in? Can the officer smoke a joint? Obviously, officers must lie in order to establish a relationship with a criminal. In sex crime cases, like prostitution, how far can an officer allow sexual contact? Can an officer threaten someone into committing a crime? Can an officer continually offer criminal temptation to a potential criminal? The ethical line seems fuzzier and broader to me here than in participant observation.

All of the questions above are not really part of a typical psychology research course. However, many of the activities that participant observers and undercover investigators take part in are similar. Just remember that their goals are quite different.

Earliest Memories? The phenonenon of childhood amnesia

2008-03-21T20:44:00.010-06:00

Here's a research question that has long intrigued me, a person's oldest memory. My oldest memory is from about three years of age. We lived in Bogota, Colombia at the time. I remember looking out the window at the stairway landing at a distant Andean peak that, apparently, was only visible every now and then because of the weather.

As a parent, I have informally tested my children from time to time about their memories. Once, I asked my oldest if he remembered visiting the Smithsonian's Natural History Museum a year after his last visit. He was about five years old at the time and he did not remember. I probed, and asked if he remembered what animal was just inside the main doors in the museum's rotunda. He still did not remember.

Here is what he did not remember, the giant elephant:

When discussing memory in class, I often ask students to recall their oldest memories. Sometimes the answers are quite extreme. Some students claim to recall salient events before they turned two years of age, while others are at a loss to recall anything before age five.

With the above as introduction, I found Wang's recent article quite apropos. Its title is: Where Does Our Past Begin? A Sociocultural Perspective on the Phenomenon of Childhood Amnesia. Here is a link to it.

Wang summarizes the data on childhood amnesia. Looks at theoretical attempts to explain it and proposes that childhood amnesia may vary socioculturally.

The Arkansas Symposium for Psychology Students

2008-03-06T21:48:00.010-06:00

The Arkansas Symposium for Psychology Students (ASPS) will hold its 24th annual meeting on April 18-19, 2008 at Arkansas State University and our own Chris Spatz will be the keynote speaker.

ASPS was founded in 1984 by Randy Smith and Ralph McKenna. The germ of their inspiration came while walking down Bourbon St. during the 1983 meeting of the Southwestern Psychological Association. The first meeting was held at Hendrix College in 1984 followed by a second meeting at Ouachita Baptist University the following year. See below for a list of the locations where ASPS has been held over the years.

That second meeting was where Chris and I first met. In fact, we roomed together. So, we have been working together for a long time now.

Here are the previous sites and keynote speakers of the Arkansas Symposium for Psychology Students:

1985	Hendrix College	March 29-30
1986	Ouachita Baptist University	April 11-12	Steve Davis
1987	Southern Arkansas University	April 3-4	Arthur J. Riopelle
1988	Arkansas Tech University	April 8-9	Richard Dana
1989	Arkansas State University	April 7-8	E. John Capaldi, Michael Prince
1990	Henderson State University	April 6-7	Nate Azrin
1991	University of Arkansas-Fayetteville	April 5-6	Elizabeth Loftus
1992	Hendrix College	April 3-4	Charles Brewer
1993	Ouachita Baptist University	April 2-3	Mark Ware
1994	Southern Arkansas University	April 8-9	Bill Hill
1995	University of Arkansas-Monticello	April 7-8	Richard Miller
1996	Arkansas Tech University	April 12-13	Craig Carson
1997	University of Central Arkansas	April 11-12	Mark Ware
1998	University of Arkansas-Fayetteville	April 3-4	Phillip Costanzo
1999	Harding University	April 16-17	Dave Myers
2000	Arkansas State University	April 7-8	Sarah Boysen
2001	Hendrix College	April 6-7	Charles Brewer
2002	Ouachita Baptist University	April 12-13	Ludy Benjamin
2003	Southern Arkansas University	April 4-5	Elizabeth Yost Hammer
2004	University of Arkansas-Fayetteville	April 4-5	Brett Pelham
2005	Arkansas Tech University	April 8-9	Sharon Roberts
2006	University of Central Arkansas	April 7-8	John Harsh
2007	University of Arkansas-Monticello	April 13-14	no invited speaker
2008	Arkansas State University	April 19-19	Chris Spatz

McKenna and Smith envisioned a low-stress, collegial conference where students and faculty could come together and celebrate research in psychology. At ASPS, all papers are accepted and there are no competitions, all in the service of friendly gathering and a good time.

By JoVE, I think they've got it.

2008-02-25T17:51:00.006-06:00

JoVE is the acronym for the new Journal of Visualized Experiments. This biological Web site displays research protocols using video, a kind of scientific YouTube.

Here is a blog entry about Moshe Pritsker, the CEO of JoVE. He discusses new deals to distribute the videos and how the cost to produce them has increased. At present, JoVE has about 200 videos. Pritsker wants to become a purveyor of biological methods videos.

JoVE is yet another example of how technology, research, and teaching interact. Video is a powerful medium. Combining video with the Web (a la YouTube) makes it possible to distribute video widely.

In chapter 12 (p. 386), we discuss another use of media as a communication medium, that is e-posters. We anticipate that many more useful applications of technology will appear over the next few years. Successful teachers and successful students will adapt to and use these new methods.

Now we need a Web site for visualizing psychological methods and protocols.

Ethics Course Topics

2008-02-21T22:13:00.009-06:00

C. Neal Stewart and J. Lannett Edwards recently taught a graduate level ethics course, Research Ethics for the Life Sciences. See The Scientist for a longer account account and for more detail on their course. See this link for a copy of their syllabus.

I thought their list of topics was instructive:

plagiarism
authorship
grantsmanship*
peer review
research misconduct
image fraud
whistle-blowing*
conflicts of interest
patenting*
women in science* (as a special topic)

* designates topics we do not cover in our book

Their recommendations for teaching such a course also bear attention:

Team teach
Use case studies
Use practical examples
Keep it light
Keep class size small
Focus on ethics not morality

On page 72, we distinguish between ethics and morality in an In the Know box. We use the American Heritage Dictionary of the American Language as a source and say, "Morality relates to personal and sexual behavior according to societal strictures. Ethics, on the other hand, is derived from philosophy and attempts to provide objective and idealistic standards for human conduct."

Nobel Advice from Baltimore

2008-02-20T23:01:00.003-06:00

The Chronicle of Higher Education recently reported on David Baltimore's advice to the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).

He said that scientists should:

Demand excellence
Concentrate resources
Create small environments
Maintain the unity of teaching and research
Make academic freedom crucial

Not following these rules, he said, will eventually pervert science and undermine economic growth.

In our book, we promote the unity of teaching and research and believe in creating small but realistic environments for our students to learn in. Naturally, we demand excellence too and believe in the importance of academic freedom. Concentrating resources has never been a problem for us, we have so little to start with.

Our Traffic is Up

2008-02-18T20:34:00.001-06:00

Thanks to all who are linking to us. We appreciate it.

Engineering: Past and Present

2008-02-18T19:46:00.018-06:00

In chapter 1 we discuss engineering and its relationship to science. Below is a list of the 20th century's greatest engineering achievements from the National Academy of Engineering.

Great Engineering Achievements

Electrification
Automobile
Airplane
Water Supply and Distribution
Electronics
Radio and Television
Agricultural Mechanization
Computers
Telephone
Air Conditioning and Refrigeration
Highways
Spacecraft
Internet
Imaging
Household Appliances
Health Technologies
Petroleum and Petrochemical Technologies
Laser and Fiber Optics
Nuclear Technologies
High-performance Materials

Tomorrow's Challenges

Make solar energy economical
Provide energy from fusion
Develop carbon sequestration methods
Manage the nitrogen cycle
Provide access to clean water
Restore and improve urban infrastructure
Advance health informatics
Engineer better medicines
Reverse-engineer the brain
Prevent nuclear terror
Secure cyberspace
Enhance virtual reality
Advance personalized learning
Engineer the tools of scientific discovery

If after reading chapter 1 you are still wondering what we mean about the relationship of science and engineering, then look at the list and links above. Engineers have taken from science and provided many engineering solutions to human problems. However, there is much still to do.

Low blood sugar is deadly?

2008-02-15T18:49:00.003-06:00

A portion of an ongoing diabetes study was recently halted when one of the groups experienced 54 more deaths than another. The group with the higher number of deaths was composed of diabetes patients who were asked to radically lower their blood sugar levels. The comparison group was also lowering their blood sugar levels, but not as much.

Nothing in the previous literature suggested that lowering blood sugar could be dangerous for diabetics, provided they did not do so abruptly.

Thus, the researchers deemed it necessary, on ethical grounds, to halt the part of the study where patients were attempting to lower their blood sugar levels to near the levels of a normal, non-diabetic person.

Read the New York Times article for more information. This study shows the necessity of monitoring data collection and making adjustments to protocols as necessary.

Get the Lead Out

2008-02-03T23:26:00.001-06:00

Here's another one of those old wives tales, except this time it turns out to be true. The tale is: Don't drink hot water from the tap. It turns out the old wives were right, this time.

A New York Times story, details why drinking hot water is dangerous. Hot water is more likely to contain lead, even in new homes. The hot water dissolves lead and other deleterious substances found in water pipes. The story points out that the risk is small, but why take chances.

More detailed information on lead and how to prevent lead poisoning can be found at the EPA's site on lead.

Metaphors for Undergraduate Research

2008-02-01T00:37:00.000-06:00

I put a lot of stock in teaching research as a process. Planning research is an important part of the process and students often wish to begin collecting data as quickly as possible. Of course, careful planning is critical to the success of any research project and many of our students have to be reined back as they champ at the bit to start.

I used a Sisyphean metaphor for research originally, but students did not like it because it made research look like an impossible task. After they made their objections clear to me, I changed the metaphor to a more pleasant one.

Here is the original, not-so-pleasant view of research:

Like poor Sisyphus in Greek mythology, students saw their research efforts as an impossible task. The upslope represented the planning phases of research, while getting the ball to roll down the hill represented the collection and analysis of data followed by writing, presentation, and publishing.

So, I searched for a better metaphor. Something that indicated fun. Hmmmm.....

I kept the hill, but changed the task. Sledding is fun, but you have to get to the top of the hill first. On the figure on the right, I have labeled some of the specific tasks in research planning. The metaphor also reveals the timeline differences between planning research and conducting research.

Only after coming to grips with all of the aspects of research planning and testing them (in the Pilot Study), are researchers ready to collect data and undertake the remaining steps. Like sledding down the hill, these steps come at a faster clip than the steps in planning.

Students are pleasantly surprised once they begin to collect data. That process is usually faster than they expect. Carefully planned data analysis also can happen quickly. Sometimes it only takes a few minutes after the raw data are entered into a computer program. As deadlines loom, drafting and editing also speed by. The few minutes it takes to present a research report scarcely convey the long hours it took to get there.

For students who elect to publish their data, much more work awaits them. Maybe we can think of those efforts as climbing the next hill.

Erratum-Page 286

2008-01-12T20:53:00.000-06:00

Here is the first of what we hope will prove to be a very short list of errata.

Shawn Powell of Casper College wrote:

"I have a question on a formula and significance test results shown on page 286. What was the df for MS residual and the number of levels of the IV used to arrive at the probability figures near the bottom of the page. Using the charts provided on pages 449 and 450 (which by the way are shown as "-" in the text on page 286) I used a df of 18 and an IV level of 2 and arrived at .05 = 2.97 and .01 = 4.07. If this is correct then the values to the right of the formula don't match up with the results shown."

Chris Spatz responded:

"To determine correct HSD critical values, the number of levels of the IV is the number in the original ANOVA problem rather than the number in the HSD test. Thus, for the HSD tests on page 286, the number is 3 and not the 2 in the HSD test. I'm afraid that our last paragraph on the page really needs some improving. Our only clue to you to use 3 is the word ANOVA. Upon re-reading, it is clear that the insertion of the numbers needed for the critical values (df = 18 and number of levels = 3) would improve the communication of what we actually did."

In addition, there is a typographical error in the last paragraph of page 286. The first two sentences should read:

"To interpret HSD values, use Table C.5 in appendix C. Critical values for alpha = .05 are on page 449 (missing page number in original); those for alpha = .01 are on page 450 (missing page number in the original)."

Our thanks to Dr. Powell and his sharp eyes. If anyone else spots similar issues please contact us.

NHST

2008-01-07T23:53:00.001-06:00

On page 169 in an In the Know box, we briefly discuss the history and current status of null hypothesis statistical testing (NHST). Naturally, we still teach NHST basics but we also emphasize newer methods such as exploring the data and using confidence intervals.

So, it was interesting to find what Irene Pepperberg had to say about NHST. You may recall Dr. Pepperberg as the psychologist who found and trained Alex, the African gray parrot, to communicate using a limited vocabulary. (See the earlier blog entry, "You be good, see you tomorrow..." where we covered Alex's death.)

Pepperberg was one of 165 scientists and others who had responded to Edge's 2008 question: What have you changed your mind about? Why? In her reply, she said she had changed her mind about NHST (although she does not refer to it as NHST, she calls it "the classic scientific method.")

She gives three reasons for her change of mind. The first is that she now realizes the importance of observation before forming testable hypotheses. The second is that some important and interesting questions about psychology do not lend themselves to easy conversion to testable hypotheses. The third is that she believes too many scientists, because of their methods training, end up seeking to prove hypotheses rather than testing them.

Here is the link to her full response.

Also, here are links to responses by other psychologists to the same question: David Buss, Howard Gardner, Diane Halpern, Daniel Kahneman, Stephen Kosslyn, and Martin Seligman. Many other scientists, thinkers, and celebrities also responded.

Seven Myths from Medicine

2007-12-28T13:41:00.000-06:00

In a recent article, Vreeman and Carroll expose seven medical myths:

You should drink eight glasses of water a day.
You only use 10% of your brain.
Your hair and fingernails grow on after you die.
Shaving your hair causes it to grow back darker and coarser.
If you read in dim light, you will ruin your eyes.
Eating turkey makes you sleepy.
Using a mobile phone in a hospital can affect other equipment

They go on to debunk each of the myths above. Interestingly, these myths persist despite evidence to the contrary. I wonder if similar myths exist in psychology.

SAD?

2007-12-18T14:19:00.000-06:00

As we approach the Winter Solstice here in the northern hemisphere, it's a good time to talk about Seasonal Affective Disorder or SAD.

SAD is a real condition caused by increased levels of melatonin. That increase is apparently caused by the longer periods of dark in the winter. Decreased levels of serototin also contribute to SAD. Winter's longer dark periods cause a drop in serotonin production. Light, delivered in high intensities and at the right time of the day, can reverse the rise in melatonin production and the decrease in serotonin, thus, combating SAD. An article in today's New York Times discusses how light, and other therapies, can alleviate SAD.

Another way to fight SAD is to eat complex carbohydrates. Those, in turn, are metabolized into serotonin. Unfortunately, they also add body weight and overeating them is not good therapy for SAD. Sorry.

So, if you are feeling a little blue and hungrier right about now and don't know why, you may have Seasonal Affective Disorder.

Here is a link to some self-assessments for diagnosing SAD, circadian rhythm, and depression. Click on their link "Self-assessments" on the top of that page.

Girls and Science

2007-12-10T22:59:00.000-06:00

I was pleased to see the news report of how three teen-aged girls recently won the Siemens Competition in Math, Science and Technology. (click here to see article) Science should not be the exclusive domain of one gender.

As the father of a ten-year-old girl I was especially heartened. Last year she announced how she hated science. But, this year she has changed her mind and now considers science as worthy of her attention.

Mostly, she likes zoology. While driving home from a visit to her grandparents one night recently, she started talking about the insects she saw clustering around the streetlights. Some streetlights hosted swarms of insects while others seemed to have none. As we talked, I gently led her into discussing why that might be. Eventually, we planned a putative science project. My main contribution being the use of a digital camera to photograph the clouds of insects so that we could get a rough count later.

I went to PsycINFO later and found one old article that seemed spot-on:

Porter, L. C. (1941). What kinds of light attract night-flying insects?, General Electric Review, 44, 310-314. I have not secured a copy yet, but will soon.

Some Spring night, she and I will go out and conduct a pilot study, select an independent variable or two, and collect some data, hopefully for the FUN of it.

Science as Entertainment?

2007-11-30T01:19:00.000-06:00

Here's a new trend, scientists appearing at bars, taverns, and clubs to a paying audience. Wow.

We professors often grouse about having to entertain our students in class. Now, it turns out, there are people who want to hear scientists talk about their findings in a non-academic setting. Hmmm...I wonder what kinds of topics I could discuss in such a setting?

A few classic studies come to mind: bystander interference, mental rotation, and the decay of memory. I can see it now: One Night Only--Come Learn the Mysteries of the Mind and Behavior. Get you tickets before they sell out. Somehow, I don't think Hanna Montana will worry about me cutting into her ticket sales.

As you might imagine, the venues for such talks are mostly in large cities in the United States. Here's a New York Times article about this new phenomenon.

Instrumentation and Psychology

2007-11-18T23:23:00.000-06:00

All science depends on instrumentation to some degree. As we note in chapter 1, Galileo used his telescope to discover data which he later incorporated into his theorizing. Another early pioneer was Robert Hooke. Like Galileo, he refined an instrument and then used it to discover new things. In Hooke's case the instrument was the microscope.

In 1665, Hooke published Micrographia, a book devoted to displaying many of the images he saw using his microscope. Hooke discovered and named cells and looked at ordinary, small objects under magnification for the first time. A recent article in TheScientist.com describes Hooke's research further and links to a display of 17th century microscopes.

In psychology too, instrumentation plays a big role, both historically and currently. The Web page, Brass Instrument Psychology, from the University of Toronto displays many instruments from early psychology in several categories: optical, auditory, and timing.

Another excellent source of historical instruments in psychology is The Archives of American Psychology at the University of Akron. The page displays a long list of categories that are linked to descriptions and pictures of the instruments.

Today, many of the devices used to measure behavior are computerized. Also, the Internet itself along with other networked devices (cell phones and pagers) are being used. Look up "psychological instruments" on Google and you will find mostly links to paper-and-paper "instruments" used to collect data.

Psychologists are well-embedded in one of science's oldest traditions, the use of instruments to reveal truths about the world.

Student Engagement and Undergraduate Research

2007-11-11T22:52:00.000-06:00

Student engagement is an elusive concept. From a faculty member's point of view, student engagement might be that all-to-rare student who asks such incisive questions. From a student's point of view, engagement might be working on a big project, doing research, or studying overseas.

Doing those things, what Nessie calls the "high-impact" activities of which big student projects, studying overseas, and conducting research are examples, now have empirical support. (Other high-impact activities include living in learning communities or writing for the school newspaper.) "Nessie" or the National Survey of Student Engagement is an 8-year old survey administered by over 1000 colleges and universities to over 300,000 freshman and seniors. The entire 2007 Annual Report can be downloaded as a PDF file here.

In the latest Nessie, undergraduate research with faculty was an important factor in improving student engagement. More specifically, conducting an undergraduate thesis (based upon empirical data collection) improved critical thinking. Field research and placements were even more valuable. When students have to work in real situations, interact with others outside of the university, and for longer periods the beneficial effects of such close faculty-student interactions become greater.

Another group deeply involved in student engagement is the American Association of Colleges and Universities (AACU). They fund programs related to improving college education, broadly defined.

Obviously, we are big fans of undergraduate research with faculty. So, one way to improve your time in college is to seek out a sympathetic faculty member and work together on a research project.

Washoe Dies

2007-11-01T20:04:00.000-06:00

Washoe, the chimp famous for communicating in sign language, died today. She was 42.

Washoe was the first ape to learn to communicate with a human using the American Sign Language. That research re-invigorated research in animal cognition.

Here is a New York Times story with more details.

Meta-analysis

2007-10-31T20:04:00.000-06:00

In chapter 2 we introduce meta-analysis, a statistical procedure for examining the results of a large number of similar studies.

A large meta-analytic study was recently released by the World Cancer Research Fund. That study found links between body fat and six types of cancer. They are: cancer of the esophagus, the pancreas, the colon, the womb, the kidney, and the breast (post-menopause).

The study looked some 7,000 published research reports published since the 1960s (out of a possible half-million articles). Dr. Michael Marmot, an epidemiologist, directed the project.

The report recommends:

ham, bacon, and other processed meats should be eaten rarely
no more than a pound of cooked red meat should be eaten weekly
drinking no more than a small glass of wine (or equivalent) per day
mothers should breastfeed for at least six months because that lowers their incidence of breast cancer
exercising at least 30 minutes per day and working up to 60 minutes per day
minimizing salt use
drinking water instead of drinks with sugar
eating fruit, vegetables and fiber

Meta-analytic studies strive to see the "big picture" created by many smaller and narrower empirical studies. To see the full report from the World Cancer Research Fund click here.

Publish the Data

2007-10-24T08:30:00.000-06:00

Science depends on planned data collection and its publication. Without publication many of the advantages of science disappear. So, it is shocking that NASA is refusing to publish the results of a major and expensive ($8.5M) telephone survey on airline safety.

The details of this story can be seen in this New York Times piece.

Over 8,000 pilots completed the survey which asked questions about safety issues during flights. Topics included the number of times birds struck airplanes and near-miss collisions (both on the ground and in the air). The survey was ordered in 1997 by a White House panel and was completed in 2005. Fearing that the data might be purged intentionally, Congress ordered that digital copies of the data be preserved.

NASA recently refused a Freedom of Information Act request to release the data from the Associated Press. The Associated Press responded, “Anxious to avoid upsetting air travelers, NASA is withholding results from an unprecedented national survey of pilots that found safety problems like near-collisions and runway interference occur more frequently than the government previously recognized.”

NASA maintained that release of the information would be detrimental to the public, the airlines, and to general aviation. They also said that the study was designed to investigate methods of collecting such data (i.e., a pilot study) not to collect data about safety.

As we point out in chapter 1, science depends on the honest publication of results. Researchers should not refuse to publish data. Many editorial columns are making the same argument. See Kansas City Star and The Boston Herald.

Children and Sleep Loss: Recent Research

2007-10-18T21:59:00.000-06:00

This blog entry has several purposes. One is to highlight recent research on sleep loss and its effects. Another is to illustrate some of the research techniques used to document the effects of sleep loss.

A recent article in New York Magazine inspired this entry. Here's the link to that article. The article references survey research conducted by the National Sleep Foundation. Basically, children are sleeping less than they did 30 years ago. Very few (5%) high school seniors get eight hours sleep a night. The average sleep time for them is about six and a half hours. Here's a link to an article about this research.

Avi Sadeh, a researcher at Tel Aviv University, conducted a sleep study where he asked 4th and 6th graders to either sleep a little more or sleep a little less each night for three nights. The children were randomly assigned to either group.

Sadeh was worried that his treatment (which was about a half hour of more sleep or less sleep each night) would not be enough to detect. The dependent variable he used, a test of neurobiological functioning, detected large differences because of sleep loss. The sleepy sixth graders functioned worse than normal fourth graders. See: The effects of sleep restriction and extension on school-age children: What a difference an hour makes. Child Development, 74, 444-455. Sadeh need not have worried about his design. One hour made a big difference.

Much other research supports the relationship between sleep loss and academic problems. In response, some school districts are moving the start of the school day to a later time. Two school districts, one in Minnesota and one in Kentucky reported amazing results. In Minnesota, SAT scores went up. In Kentucky, driving accidents for teens went down.

Response to these data has not been what you might expect. Only a few school districts have started school later. Not many parents have made their children sleep more. The bottom line? We all need more sleep.

Scientific Societies: History and Psychological

2007-10-12T00:02:00.000-06:00

The Royal Society

In chapter 12 (p. 384) we discuss the forming of the Royal Society, the first scientific society, founded in 1662. We also mention the American Psychological Association, the Association for Psychological Science, and the seven regional psychological associations.

Scientific societies hold an important role in science. Many publish journals and nearly all hold annual meetings. Scientific societies also help scientists identify themselves professionally and give them a venue for meeting other scientists who are interested in similar topics.

The Royal Society has the longest history, naturally, and this page tells the story of the Society. Before the actual founding of the society, English scientists began meeting in what they called an "invisible college" to discuss the ideas of Francis Bacon. Two of those early scientists were Christopher Wren and Robert Boyle. Robert Hooke and Isaac Newton were two other early members. Their correspondence led Newton to develop his theory of universal gravitation.

In 1679, Hooke, then the secretary of the Royal Society, wrote to Newton inviting him to correspond about scientific topics of mutual interest to them. (See: Cohen, I. B., (1981). Newton's discovery of gravity, Scientific American, 244 (3), 166-179 for a comprehensive account.) A few years earlier, Hooke and Newton had disagreed over Newton's work on optics. So, intense was Hooke's criticism that Newton nearly gave up science.

Their new correspondence was amicable and related to planetary motion and the predicted paths of objects in space as they were influenced by other objects. After a visit by Edmund Halley, the discoverer of Halley's comet, Newton's ideas became firmer. Halley urged Newton to publish his ideas and Newton did, writing De Motu.

Psychological Societies

The American Psychological Association was founded in 1892 in the home of G. Stanley Hall. Fernberger's account tells much about the first 50 years of the association. The Association for Psychological Science was founded in 1988. This link provides a timeline of APS's history.

Information on the regional psychological associations can be found here. As we mention in chapter 12, the seven regionals are: the Eastern Psychological Association (EPA), the Midwestern Psychological Association (MPA), the New England Psychological Association (NEPA), the Rocky Mountain Psychological Association (RMPA), the Southeastern Psychological Association (SEPA), the Southwestern Psychological Association (SWPA), and the Western Psychological Association (WPA).

The seven regionals differ in size. The WPA and MPA are the largest. NEPA is the smallest. The EPA and SEPA are mid-sized and the SWPA and RMPA are slightly smaller. All of the regionals meet annually in cities within their regions. The MPA nearly always meets in Chicago (at the Palmer House Hotel) while the others move from city to city.

Many students, both undergraduate and graduate, attend the meetings of regional and national societies. The meetings provide many learning opportunities for them. Check the links above for a meeting near you and try to attend.

Scientific Facts Do Not Speak for Themselves

2007-10-02T14:41:00.001-06:00

In chapter 5 (p. 127) we write, "Although you may have heard that the data speak for themselves, this isn't true. It is the researcher's (and others') explanations that speak for the data."

Recently, Matthew Nisbet and Dietram Scheufele expanded on this thought in an article online. That article, "The facts never speak for themselves, which is why scientists need to "frame" their messages to the public," looks at science and how its methods and results are communicated by scientists and the media to the public.

They define framing as a way to "tailor messages in ways that make them personally relevant and meaningful to different publics." They argue that the older model of science, the popular science model, assumes "that the facts will speak for themselves and will win out, with no attention to how the facts are presented." We don't agree with popular science model either.

Here are some of the frames they identified in their research on science communication:

morality/ethics
social progress
racing to find a cure
economic competitiveness
brain drain
Pandora's box
high tech inspired by nature
asbestos
Frankenfood

They point out that the media and advocacy groups often frame issues purposively while many scientists do not. They take time to differentiate framing from spin. Scientists should not spin their results; scientific integrity is still paramount.

As a "first step" they suggest that scientists must learn to be better spokespersons for their work. Scientific leaders, especially, must lead the way. They are the ones in positions that can effect positive change the quickest. They also suggest greater public dialog about science. However, they are not optimistic that great numbers of the public will attend such meetings.

They praise, E. O. Wilson's book, An Appeal to Save Life on Earth, because he frames his arguments scientifically, personally, and morally. That multiple framing, they say, has led to religious audiences reading and discussing his book.

They cite reasons why science and its results fare are so poorly communicated. People pay more attention to sources that confirm what they already believe. New and expanding media outlets such as the Internet and television offer the potential for better informing the public, yet paradoxically, they are not used by the public. Instead, only a small minority tune in to content about science. They rest look elsewhere.

They give specific examples of well known and little known instances of science and framing. Among the well known are evolution vs. intelligent design and stem cell research. Less well known (in the United States, but not in Europe) are plant biotechnology and nanotechnology.

As stated in the beginning, we agree with Nisbet and Scheufele. Scientists must be advocates for their data. We would add, that another strategy toward this goal is to teach budding scientists, from the outset, that the data do not speak for themselves.

Epidemiology's Methods

2007-09-17T13:20:00.000-06:00

Several recent articles have highlighted how epidemiologists conduct research and some have criticized their results.

An LA Times article discusses some of these results, methods, and criticisms. Some of the past results have been 180 degrees apart. Look at the results they cite about coffee and its effects. In 1981, a study concluded that two or three cups of coffee a day tripled the risk of pancreatic cancer. In 2001, another, larger study concluded that the earlier results were not true. Similarly, a 1981 study found that drinking coffee reduced the risk of colorectal cancer. Predictably, a later study in 2005 contradicted it.

Most epidemiological studies are observational. As we discuss in chapter 10, observational studies (e.g., naturalistic observation and participant observation) do not alter the situation under observation. Other ways to conduct epidemiological research is through cohort studies, case control studies (or retrospective), and cross-sectional studies.

The big advantage of epidemiological studies is that they are relatively cheap to conduct. However, they do not allow researchers to make cause-and-effect conclusions about the variables under investigation.

Much better results are provided by randomized clinical trials (or what we call true experiments). Randomized clinical trials are the medical version of true experiments. In a clinical trial, two (or more) groups are created by a random procedure.

Another LA Times article highlights some of the recent research discrepancies discovered by observational methods vs. clinical trials.

A long New York Times article also covers the issues inherent in observational research. That article concludes:

"All of this suggests that the best advice is to keep in mind the law of unintended consequences. The reason clinicians test drugs with randomized trials is to establish whether the hoped-for benefits are real and, if so, whether there are unforeseen side effects that may outweigh the benefits. If the implication of an epidemiologist's study is that some drug or diet will bring us improved prosperity and health, then wonder about the unforeseen consequences. In these cases, it's never a bad idea to remain skeptical until someone spends the time and money to do randomized trial and, contrary to much of the history of the endeavor to date, fails to refute it."

Our final word echoes our advice in chapter 1, learning about methods is a good thing.

You be good, see you tomorrow...

2007-09-12T11:51:00.000-06:00

It's unique for a parrot to have last words: "You be good, see you tomorrow. I love you."

Those were Alex's last words before he went into his cage on Thursday, September 6, 2001. Alex, of course, was Irene Pepperberg's famous African Grey parrot. She had taught him over 150 words, revolutionizing the area of animal cognition in the process.

Alex had been with Pepperberg since 1977 and was 31 years old. Her research continues with two other parrots: Griffin and Arthur.

Rest well Alex, and well done.

Here is a link to a New York Times article about Alex's life. Here is a link to The Alex Foundation, a Web page devoted to Alex and his work.

Types of Science

2007-09-06T20:53:00.000-06:00

In chapter 1, we discuss science in some detail because we believe it is important for students to know where psychology fits within science itself and how its methods compare to other scientific disciplines.

Diana Rhoten's recent article in the Chronicle of Higher Education (The dawn of networked science, Vol. 54, Issue 2, Page B12) adds much to the story of how science has developed in the last 100 years.

She provides the following classification of science: bench-top science, big science, team science, and networked science.

Two good examples of bench-top science are Mendel's research on peas and Goddard's research on rocketry. Both were low-budget and conducted alone or in small groups.

Here's a picture I took at the Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC showing one of Goddard's early rockets (that's Robert Goddard in the background). He and his collaborators used to drive out to the country with their disassembled rockets in the back of a pickup truck. They would put the rockets together, shoot them off, and sometimes had to run from local farmers afterward.

After World War II, rocket science became a part of big science. The United States government captured many German V-2 rockets along with many scientists and began a major research project in rocketry. That research led to ICBMs and to manned spaceflight. If it costs a few million dollars or more, it's probably big science.

Big science not only costs lots of money, it also requires a top-down infrastructure. Rhoten notes research such as the Manhattan Project and the Hubble Space Telescope as examples of big science.

Team science, she says, "is often centered on researchers whose main ties are to the given intellectual challenge." (and not to a particular institution). An early and successful example of team science is the Human Genome project. In that research, scientists from many disciplines from laboratories all around the world collaborated to solve a particular problem. They did so ahead of schedule and under budget.

Networked science is emerging now thanks to advanced computer technologies and networks. New and virtual entities such as InnoCentive and the Biomedical Informatics Research Network offer opportunities for scientists everywhere to solve problems (and get paid for it). Rhoten cites the case of Edward Melcarek. He is a scientist who works on problems for InnoCentive. Click here for a Wired.com article on Melcarek.

Networked science may offer a mechanism to return to a model more similar to bench-top science than to big science.

J. Michael Bailey: The Rest of the Story

2007-09-05T13:46:00.000-06:00

On page 334 (in chapter 10), we mention the travails of J. Michael Bailey after he published his book, The Man Who Would be Queen (2003).

Specifically, we wrote:

Another ethical concern involves informed consent and communication with participants. Because most small–N research involves close and extended contact between researchers and participants, a personal relationship is more likely to develop than in other types of psychological research. The perils of relationship and role confusion in small-N research were evident after Bailey (2003) published a book about transsexuals. After its publication, several of the transsexuals studied accused Bailey of failing to inform them that their interactions with him constituted research. One “participant” claimed that she and Bailey had sex during the time he later claimed he had been observing her as part of his research.

A recent New York Times article follows up on this story and provides more details on what has happened since we wrote the paragraph above.

Bailey has been confronted by several critics, the most prominent is Lynn Conway from the University of Michigan. She maintains a Web page investigating the publication of Bailey's book.

An ethics scholar, Alice Dreger, has conducted an investigation of the case. Her report can be found at http://www.bioethics.northwestern.edu/. It will be published soon in the Archives of Sexual Behavior.

The participant who accused Bailey of sexual misconduct did so five years after the alleged incident. Whether or not the incident actually took place has never been determined.

Two of the other participants who complained about being mentioned in the book were not, in fact, mentioned. The other two said they knew their stories would be in the book.

In short, much ado about something has marked this case. We still stand behind our advice, communication and documentation are essential in small-N research. Bailey could have avoided much of what happened had he made things more clear to his participants at the beginning.

Pointing to Food and Picking Pink

2007-08-23T23:50:00.000-06:00

An article in The Economist (August 23, 2007) discusses some recent research in gender differences and the origins of those differences.

Joshua New , Max M. Krasnow, Danielle Truxaw, and Steven J.C. Gaulin conducted a field experiment to investigate whether men or women are better at finding food in a natural environment. They used a nearby farmer's market to test their hypotheses: women will remember the location of previously visited food resources better than will men, and the higher the nutritional value of the food, the better the location will be remembered.

A total of 96 volunteers (41 women and 45 men) each stopped at six of the 90 food stalls in the farmer's market. Later, they pointed (individually) at the six stalls from a location in the center of the market. Women were more accurate, by an average of 9 degrees. Both men and women were more accurate at pointing at the stalls that contained food with higher nutritional value.

These results were originally published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society (the first scientific association, you will recall from chapter 12, p. 384).

Anya Hurlbert and Yazhu Ling asked British and Chinese young (early 20s) men and women to pick their favorite colors as they flashed on a computer screen. While most studies like theirs reveal a near universal preference for blue by both genders, they were able to find a preference for reddish to pinkish hues by women. Participants who scored as feminine on the Bem Sex Role Inventory, also showed a preference for reddish to pinkish hues, regardless of their sex. They did not discover any cultural differences.

These results were originally published in Current Biology. Here is a link to a summary of their article.

The article in The Economist links both of these findings to evolutionary psychology. Women being the gatherers in primitive human hunter-gatherer societies and women being the ones most likely to select edible fruits.

Torture

2007-08-20T20:39:00.000-06:00

Before 9/11 I used to mention torture off-handedly in my learning class as an example of sensitization . Of course, I never dreamed back then that any psychologists would actually use torture. Like many, I thought that the Nuremberg Trials had shut the door firmly on those who would use the scientific method for less than benign ends. Apparently, I was wrong. I no longer mention torture in class.

Yesterday, the American Psychological Association took an important step when its council voted to affirm an "absolute prohibition against psychologists' knowingly planning, designing, and assisting in the use of torture and any form of cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment."

More specifically, the council named prohibited actions: "includes all techniques defined as torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment under the 2006 Resolution Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, the United Nations Convention Against Torture, and the Geneva Convention. This unequivocal condemnation includes, but is by no means limited to, an absolute prohibition for psychologists against direct or indirect participation in interrogations or in any other detainee-related operations in mock executions, water-boarding or any other form of simulated drowning or suffocation, sexual humiliation, rape, cultural or religious humiliation, exploitation of phobias or psychopathology, induced hypothermia, the use of psychotropic drugs or mind-altering substances used for the purpose of eliciting information; as well as the following used for the purposes of eliciting information in an interrogation process: hooding, forced nakedness, stress positions, the use of dogs to threaten or intimidate, physical assault including slapping or shaking, exposure to extreme heat or cold, threats of harm or death; and isolation, sensory deprivation and over-stimulation and/or sleep deprivation used in a manner that represents significant pain or suffering or in a manner that a reasonable person would judge to cause lasting harm; or the threatened use of any of the above techniques to the individual or to members of the individual’s family;"

The American Psychological Association's action follows similar positions by the American Medical Association, and the American Psychiatric Association. Yesterday's statement by the American Psychological Association was a compromise from another stronger position which sought to ban psychologists' participation from all interrogations. The council rejected that earlier proposal.

The Psychologists for Social Responsibility recently sponsored a symposium: Rethinking the Psychology of Torture. One of their conclusions was that, "Torture does not yield reliable information and is actually counterproductive in intelligence interrogations."

At least we now have some operational definitions of what not to do (or teach) with regard to torture.

Sweat equity

2007-08-14T22:18:00.000-06:00

I could not resist--research on sweat. It's true, research topics ARE all around us. (Apparently, some of them are even ON us.) Maybe it's the fact that today's temperatures here were well over 100 degrees F that has grabbed my attention.

Again, the New York Times has inspired me to post with an article titled: Sweatology.

There are some interesting facts in that article:

Humans tolerate cooling more than they tolerate heating
People show tremendous variation in the number of sweat glands they possess
Our body temperatures are lower in the morning.
Thermoregulation in menopausal women goes awry so that they believe they are hotter than they really are and they sweat more.
The elderly sweat less than they should (physiology again) and thus are more prone to heat related problems.
Anger, too, makes us sweat.
Clothing affects sweating. Naked people sweat more than clothed people. (The IRB is going to love that one.)
Heat acclimation is a real phenomenon. After being in the heat for a week or so, people's sweat glands get bigger and produce more sweat.

Here are the researchers mentioned in the article.

Nina Jablonski is an evolutionary anthropologist whose recent book, Skin, compares the cooling strategies of various primate species (among other topics).

Craig Crandall studies human thermoregulation and has a lab in Dallas.

The National Renewable Energy Laboratory has developed a manikin called Adam, to measure human thermal comfort inside automobiles. Their goal is to decrease fuel consumption by reducing the use of automotive air conditioning.

Edison once said, "Genius is 1% percent inspiration and 99% perspiration." Maybe he was right.

The value of undergraduate research

2007-08-13T20:35:00.000-06:00

The Chronicle of Higher Education (August, 17, 2007, by Lila Guterman, ) has two articles : What good is undergraduate research anyway? (p. A12) and Research on undergraduate research (A14) Most teachers assume that having undergraduates conduct research is a good way to teach. So, it's refreshing to see some researchers asking themselves whether that assumption is warranted.

The article, Research on undergraduate research, looks at three separate research projects, one at the University of Colorado at Boulder (N = 76), published in Science Education, another at Grinnell College (N = 1,135), published in Cell Biology Education, and still another at SRI International (N = 8,000+). The report of the SRI research can be found by clicking here.

The longer article, What good is undergraduate research anyway?, provides some analysis and commentary. The results of the study above support the assumption that undergraduate research is a good way to teach. Interestingly, it looks like conducting undergraduate research convinces some, but not many, additional students to change their previous career plans and attend graduate school instead. Some students learn that research does not suit them.

On the other side of the coin, results indicated that "authentic" instead "mundane" undergraduate research experiences were more valuable, educationally. Faculty note that teaching via undergraduate research experiences takes more time than teaching in other ways.

We can agree on both the worth and the cost of supervising undergraduate research. Our text reveals our bias toward undergraduate research (we hope).

Perception and Highway Signs

2007-08-12T14:10:00.001-06:00

Martin Pietrucha is an associate professor of civil and environmental engineering at Penn State University. His research focuses on the readability of highway signs. He lists human factors as one of his specialties.

A recent New York Times article highlights his research on a new font, Clearview, with improved readability. The Federal Highway Administration approved Clearview in 2004. Many states are now replacing their older Highway Gothic font signs with Clearview.

Here is a picture of two signs. The left one is in Highway Gothic and the one on the right is in Clearview.
Graphic source

Here is how these data are collected:

Graphic source

Future research of this type will look at negative contrast signs (dark on light).

The research described here and other similar human factors research are examples of how psychologists and other scientists can apply the principles of measurement and research to solve real world problems.

Test-Retest

2007-07-27T11:40:00.000-06:00

It's hard to find stories on statistical and methodological topics. Here's one such rare story.

The New York Times ran a poll (N = 1,554, Sampling error = + or - 3%) on Hillary Clinton in early July, 2007. One question, "Looking back, do you think the United States did the right thing in taking military action against Iraq, or should the United States have stayed out?"

The results surprised the pollsters because more respondents agreed with the question (42%) in July compared to respondents to the same question (35%) in a May poll. All of the other war-related questions had shown no such change.

The pollsters finally concluded they needed to retest the question. The did so after removing a question about Clinton's repudiation of her 2002 vote against the war. In the original poll, that question was near the military action question.

The second poll (N = 889, Sampling error = + or - 3%) produced nearly identical results with 42% agreeing. In this second poll, another question also showed a change from the earlier May data. Fewer respondents (66%) thought that "things are going badly for the United States in its efforts to bring stability and order to Iraq" than in May (76%). After running the second poll, the pollsters were confident they had detected a change in public opinion. However, they did not know what was causing the change.

Here is a link to the New York Times story

Rattus norvegicus

2007-07-24T17:10:00.000-06:00

I have fond memories of running rats nearly 35 years ago as an undergraduate. Back then, I helped maintain the rat and pigeon colony, even though the rats made me sneeze. I had to wear a mask to work in there. That space is no more and is now an administrator's office. Today's undergraduates are not likely to remove a laboratory rat from its cage, "gentle" it every day, design animal experiments, and run rats.

When I first came to Southern Arkansas University, there was a small, temporary, rat lab in the department. It was set up every spring semester and dismantled after graduation. One day I noticed small beetles flying in the hall, Tribolium confusum, or confused flour beetles is what they were. They were feeding on the rat chow. Since then, we have had no rats. Can't say I miss them however.

However, rats are still in the picture, research-wise. A New York Times article reviewed some recent rat research including research in dreaming, drug use, and sexual behavior. Some rats even show evidence of meta-cognition (see Jonathon D. Crystal's home page), or knowing what they know.

So the domestic Norway rat, Rattus norvegicus, is still around. They are just harder to find than they used to be.

Faked Data: Interviews and Urine Samples

2007-07-23T21:41:00.000-06:00

A research associate at UCLA falsified 20 interviews and their associated urine samples recently. In addition, he also pocketed $5,180 in project funds.

His punishment? The Office of Research Integrity has banned him for three years. He may not work on or serve on federal grants during that period.

To see a online article in the Chronicle of Higher Education, click here.

Obviously, this story is a case of scientific misconduct. Let it serve as a counterexample for you and your research.

Batch of Research Ideas

2007-07-18T11:13:00.001-06:00

Here's the latest batch of research ideas from our students. Feel free to use them as inspiration for your own research. Also, these ideas show what our students are thinking about.

Who stays married longer, couples who marry young or those who marry when older?
Why is the percentage of African-American baseball players declining?
What percentage of freshmen begin to experiment with illicit drugs?
Is there a relationship between climate and GPA?
What causes women to remain in abusive relationships?
Are women less likely to be ticketed following a traffic stop?
Are biracial sons reared by Caucasian mothers at greater risk of becoming criminals?
Are Americans worried about contaminated food?
Why is so much food thrown away by restaurants and not donated to the needy?
Would students buy healthy snacks from vending machines if it was available?
How many first mothers opt to breastfeed?
What are the characteristics of people who sell on eBay?
During which semester do students make the worst grades?

Check back here soon to see what designs were used to answer these questions.

Usability as a Career

2007-07-08T22:19:00.000-06:00

In chapter 1 we write about careers and how the research methods course can be leveraged into getting a job or obtaining a promotion. One job we did not mention is that of usability professional.

Usability is a big deal in the age of the Internet, but like most things, it existed before the World Wide Web. However, the profusion of Web pages, computer applications, and new technological goodies like the Blackberry and the iPhone have made us more aware of usability.

The New York Times article "Technology's untanglers: They make it really work" inspired this entry. In that article are examples of usability experts collecting data from users in order to improve their experiences. One expert, Dr. Janice Redish, noted that the main skills she looks for in a usability professional are "solid observation and interview skills." Hmmm....sounds like chapter 10, no?

Just in case you are interested, the article reports that the average salary for a usability professional was $86,500 (in 2005, the latest year reported by the Usability Professionals' Association. Also, many companies are now creating high-ranking positions such as "Directory of Usability."

Meow, researching the cats among us

2007-07-02T09:13:00.000-06:00

Cats and humans have lived together for a long time. An abstract in Science (click here) reveals just how long that relationship has lasted and how successful it has been for both parties. A New York Times piece reviews the Science article.

Carlos A. Driscoll and his nine co-authors propose that all 600 million domestic cats in the world are the genetic descendants of five female cats from the Middle East who domesticated themselves about 10, 000 years ago. The domestic arrangement was beneficial to both cats and people. The fact that cats initiated the arrangement helps to explain, in part, why cats are so different from dogs.

The fact that cats are sedentary, our propensity to take our cats with us when we move, and the ease of identifying cat genes via their coats has revealed much about human population movements. See "Cats and commerce" in the November, 1977 Scientific American or "Pussy cat, pussy cat, where have you been" in the August, 1986 Natural History. Both those articles show how we can use our long relationship with cats to discover facts about ourselves (and them).

Edward Tufte

2007-06-13T22:31:00.000-06:00

We briefly mention Edward Tufte in chapter 12. He deserves much more space because of his pioneering work in communicating information using graphs. A recent STANFORD Magazine article reviews his career.

He was unable to find a publisher for his first book, The Visual Display of Quantitative Information, so he started his own publishing company, Graphics Press. Today, he estimates that he has sold over 1.4 million copies of his books.

One of Tufte's contributions to our vocabularies is the word, chartjunk, the unnecessary elements often found in graphics.

In our classes (and in chapter 12), we emphasize the skills involved in creating effective and elegant graphs. Dr. Tufte also teaches a one-day course in presenting data and information, and it's half price for students.

Narrative Psychology and Methodology

2007-05-22T08:53:00.000-06:00

Another New York Times article nicely illustrates the interplay of qualitative and quantitative research in exploring a complex psychological topic: whether or not personality can be explored via first-person accounts. This is, of course, a throwback to some of the earliest ideas in scientific psychology.

The research summarized in the article and further elaborated upon below re-opens many questions asked by early psychologists. However, the methodological lessons learned since psychology's early days are fully understood by these researchers.

Thus, McAdams et al. (2006) (see full references below) find that narrative accounts of one's life show evidence of continuity. In other words, they check to be sure that the phenomenon they are studying is reliable over time. McAdams and his co-workers report on research in which college students write detailed accounts about their lives three times (initially, at three months, and at three years). They found continuity for "narrative complexity, and...emotional tone."

Similarly, McLean and Pasupathi (2006) find that extraverts were more likely to engage in collaborative narration. They test an independent variable (extraversion/introversion) and find that it predicts an effect under two separate conditions. McLean and Pasupathi report on two studies, the first on self-defining memories and the second on everyday narration. Their hypothesis, that extraverts were more likely to engage in collaborative narration was supported by both studies.

Adler et al. (2006) show that depressive thinking and concern over contamination each independently predicted depression. They, too, examine independent variables (self-thoughts about depression and contamination) and find that each predicted depression. Adler and his collaborators used the CAVE (the Content Analysis of Verbatim Explanations) to evaluate 70 life interviews from midlife adults. They found that depressogenic attributional style and themes of contamination each independently predict depression and low satisfaction with life.

Kross et al. (2005) attempt to look at the difference between rumination and adaptive reflection. Here, the independent variable was created by dividing participants into two groups depending on whether they asked themselves 'Why' questions. Those who did ask themselves 'Why' experienced cooler emotional reactions when thinking about past memories. In two experiments, the authors attempt to "disentangle" rumination from adaptive reflection. Their results suggest that individuals who ask 'Why?' were more able to re-experience emotional experiences in a cooler manner and without reliving the experience.

Finally, Libby et al. (2005) examine first-person and third-person memories of emotional events. They find that change is more likely to accompany third-person retrospective accounts. Again, they used participants' self-selection of first- or third- person accounts to create groups. Libby and her colleagues studied first-person vs. third person memory perspectives in five separate studies (looking at motivation, goals, instructions, and self-esteem). They found that third-person perspectives were more likely to produce judgments of self-change in the context of looking for change. However, third-person judgments were less likely to produce judgments for self-change in contexts looking for continuity.

For further reading:

Adler, J. M., Kissel, E. C., & McAdams, D. P. (2006). Emerging from the CAVE: Attributional style and the narrative study of identity in midlife adults. Cognitive Therapy and Research, 30, 39-51.

Kross, E., Ayduk, O., & Mischel, W. (2005). When asking 'Why' does not hurt: Distinguishing rumination from reflective processing of negative emotions. Psychological Science, 16, 709-715.

Libby, L. K., Eibach, R. P., & Gilovich, T. (2005). Here's looking at me: The effect of memory perspective on assessments of personal change. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 88, 50-62.

McAdams, D. P., Bauer, J. J., Sakaeda, A. R., Aniyidoho, N. A., Machado, M. A., Magrino-Failla, K., White, K. W., & Pals, J. L. (2006). Continuity and change in the life story: A longitudinal study of autobiographical memories in emerging adulthood. Journal of Personality, 74, 1371-1400.

McLean, K. C., & Pasupathi, M. (2006). Collaborative narration of the past and extraversion, Journal of Research in Personality, 40, 1219-1231.

Two new Einstein biographies reviewed

2007-05-20T20:58:00.001-06:00

In chapter 1, Science, we discuss Albert Einstein and his scientific works. His research illustrates the relationship between theory and experimentation (Einstein being primarily a theorist).

The books reviewed in the New York Times offer fresh insight into how Einstein formulated his theories. They also shed light on his personal life.

One of the points we raise in chapter 1 is the human element in scientific theorizing and in empirical data collection. Scientists are more similar to their fellow humans than they are different. The two biographies reviewed show Einstein's scientific side and his human side.

The books are:

Isaacson, W. (2007). Einstein: His life and universe. New York: Simon & Schuster. (First chapter)

Neffe, J. (2007). Einstein: A biography. (S. Frisch, Trans.). New York: Farrar, Straus, & Giroux. (Original work published 2005) (First chapter)

Unfairness and heart attacks

2007-05-14T19:15:00.000-06:00

A recent article in the Los Angeles Times discusses the relationship between believing one was treated unfairly and subsequent heart attacks and angina (chest pain).

Civil servants in England were asked, "I often have the feeling that I am being treated unfairly." At the time of surveying, none of the approximately 6000 respondents were in poor health or showed signs of heart disease.

Ten years later, for those who reported high levels of unfair treatment, 387 had either died or had been treated for angina or other heart problems.

Respondents who reported less unfair treatment had lower levels of cardiac events.

The authors interpret these results as evidence for a possible relationship between cardiovascular and mental health. The mechanisms for the relationship are indirect. People who believe they have been treated unfairly are more likely to drink, smoke, overeat, and engage in other similar risky behaviors.

Reasons to adopt Spatz & Kardas

2007-05-10T06:21:00.000-06:00

Here are 15 reasons to adopt our book:

It brings a fresh approach to research methods texts emphasizing the empowering of students as budding researchers. Our approach treats students much like apprentice scientists working in collaboration with master scientist.
It offers a simpler framework toward understanding the nature of research. We divide science into three main categories: experimental, correlational, and meta-analytic. Experimental methods are broadly defined.
It shows the differences in theory construction in psychological theory and physical science. We use Mjöset’s classification of social science theories: law-oriented, ideal, critical, and constructivist (Ch. 1) to provide students with a sophisticated understanding of recent social science theorizing.
It provides a step-by-step framework for understanding research methodologies. We use two chapters (11 & 12) to walk students through the entire research process from getting an idea to writing the final report and presenting it.
It emphasizes the central nature of ethics in psychological research. We make ethics a topic that is totally interwoven into the fabric of research and cover ethics with an entire chapter (3) that spans a gamut of topics including the IRB, scientific misconduct, and Nuremberg Code.
Spatz & Kardas reproduce the entire Ethics Code of the American Psychological Association. We take students through Section 8 (Research and Publication) of APA’s Ethics Code using responsibility to participants, responsibility to psychology, and animal research as conceptual guides. Informed consent and other ethical topics are fully explained and a sample consent form is provided. APA’s entire Ethics Code is reproduced as Appendix B.
It covers non-experimental approaches to psychological research. Chapter 10 covers naturalistic and participant observation, qualitative research (interviews, focus groups, oral history, archival research), and small-N research (case studies, AB, and ABA designs).
It provides examples of research conducted by undergraduate students. We use examples of psychological research conducted by undergraduate students and published in undergraduate journals to inspire budding researchers.
It leads students through the process of research from start to finish. Chapters 11 and 12 gently lead students through the research process from selecting original research topics to publishing research in undergraduate journals.
It provides comprehensive coverage of data exploration and statistics. Chapter 5 emphasizes modern exploratory data analysis (descriptive and inferential) and graphs. Chapter 6 covers traditional NHST statistical tests. Effect size and meta-analysis are fully covered.
The Stop & Think feature used by Spatz & Kardas adds to the interactive feel of the text. The Stop & Think questions (immediately followed by answers) are interspersed throughout the text, helping students see the authors’ pedagogy as they read.
It places glossary items in the margins and as a separate section makes the text easier to use. All glossary items appear in the margins and in a separate glossary. Glossary items are bolded the first time they appear in the text.
Spatz & Kardas’ use In the Know boxes helps students see the bigger picture easily. The In the Know boxes succinctly explain “inside information” similar to what we would share with a student during a conversation.
We replicate our engaging classroom styles in our writing. The text reads easily, it's a conversation. Students are directly addressed and treated as engaged learners.
It introduces extraneous variables gradually and logically. Extraneous variables are introduced gradually over three chapters (7 to 9), as are methods for their control. Students more easily learn how to handle extraneous variables through design.

Research: The 5 second rule

2007-05-10T06:08:00.000-06:00

Here is some whimsical research. The research question is: Is it safe to eat food dropped on the floor if you pick it up within five seconds?

Interestingly, this topic has been researched. A recent New York Times article, summarizes those efforts.

All of this goes to show that nearly any topic can be researched!

Wagging Tails

2007-05-02T05:47:00.000-06:00

A recent New York Times article summarizes research on differences in tail wagging by dogs. The article was published in the journal Current Biology recently. This link gives the doi locator for the article. Here is the citation:

Quaranta, A., Siniscalchi, G., & Vallortigara, G. (2007). Assymmetric tail-wagging responses to different emotive stimuli. Current Biology, 17, R199-R201.

Because we each first came to psychology as animal researchers, we naturally perk up when we find articles that stimulate our original interests. This particular article describes observational research conducted on pet dogs which indicates that their tail wagging direction differs depending of whether the stimulus causing the wagging is familiar or unfamiliar.

The 30 dogs observed were more likely to wag their tails to the right when presented with a familiar stimulus (their owner), but when presented with a large, dominant dog (a Belgian Malinois ) they were more likely to wag their tails to the left. The two other stimuli used, an unfamiliar human and a cat also led to right-side tail wagging, but with a lower amplitude.

Also of interest here is their method, naturalistic observation. From initial, unstructured observations, the authors conducted a more formal and controlled experiment. Their research serves as a good example of how scientists move from observation to experimentation.

Laws and Student Psychopathology

2007-04-19T09:20:00.000-06:00

The Virginia Tech shootings have caused many to speculate whether the warning signs exhibited by the shooter were sufficient to have warranted intervention. Other discussions have centered around civil liberties and laws related to student conduct.

The linked article from the New York Times, Laws limit options when a student is mentally ill, discusses the last point above. There are many constraints placed on colleges and universities about how they may deal with students who exhibit unusual behaviors.

Zimbardo on Evil

2007-04-04T11:50:00.000-06:00

Dr. Phillip Zimbardo has a new book out, The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil. In a review in the New York Times, he discusses his famous prison experiment and compares it to Milgram's earlier obedience research.

In that review he states, "In a lot of ways, the studies (his prison study and Milgram's obedience study) are bookends in our understanding of evil."

We agree. Chapter 3 of our text capitalizes on his book end metaphor nicely, we think.

Off to SWPA

2007-04-03T22:49:00.000-06:00

Ed's off to the annual SWPA meeting. SWPA, the Southwestern Psychological Association, is one of the regional psychological associations we discuss in chapter 12 (p. 384).

SWPA's meeting features talks by several prominent researchers:

Through the Labyrinth: How Women Have Both Advantage and Disadvantage as Leaders: Alice Eagly, this year's Saul Sells' lecturer who is Professor and Chair of the Psychology Department and the James Padilla Chair of Arts and Sciences at Northwestern University. The winner of numerous awards and honors, Professor Eagly has two main speciality areas: attitudes and gender.

The Positive Psychology of Disability: Christopher B. Keys, who isProfessor and Chair of the Psychology Department at DePaul University. A former President of the Society for Community Research and Action (Division 27 of APA). Professor Keys has been conducting studies concerning the empowerment and strengths of people with disabilities and their families for 20 years. He helped edit the award-winning Encyclopedia of Disability and has been invited to present his research in Asia, Australia, Latin America and Europe.

Offensive Defensiveness: Why People Promote Zeal After Self-threats: Ian McGregor of York University, Toronto, Canada, has been referred to "as one of the truly bright stars in a new generation of research psychologists." He will speak on his cutting-edge laboratory work on the root causes of zealous ideological conviction and extremism.

Seeds of Hope: Effective Interventions for Relationship-Disturbed Children: David Cross is the director of the Developmental Research Lab, and Associate Director of the Institute of Child Development at Texas Christian University. For the past ten years he has been working with Dr. Karyn Purvis (Director, Institute of Child Development at TCU) to develop research-based interventions for at-risk adopted children and their families.

Different Strokes for Different Folks: the Genetic Basis of Individual Differences: SAMR invited speaker is Howard K. Gershenfeld, M.D., Ph.D., Associate Professor, Psychiatry, Internal Medicine - Clinical Geneticist , Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, Southwestern Medical School.

Dr. William Buskist of Auburn University will present his 2005 Harry Kirke Wolfe lecture which he originally presented at the APA convention in New Orleans. This presentation is a part of a lecturer program for regional psychological associations sponsored by the APA.

I'm looking forward to an exciting few days in Ft. Worth.

Mastermind and Interactions

2007-03-20T22:36:00.000-06:00

The board game, Mastermind, can be used to demonstrate interactions and main effects in an abstract way.

Here is Wikipedia's description of Mastermind (click here). Downloadable versions of Mastermind can be found near the bottom of that page. Finding original games is still possible. Try an eBay search for Mastermind, for instance.

Playing Mastermind is, ultimately, a search for the interaction of its two variables (a.k.a. main effects) peg color and peg position. A player wins when the opponent's pattern of pegs has been decoded. During play, the coding player provides feedback (or, values for a dependent variable) using white or black pegs. A white peg indicates that the correct color of a peg has been decoded, but that the peg is not in the correct position. A black peg indicates that both the color of the peg and its position are correct. The decoding player wins when all of the feedback pegs are black.

Mastermind can also be used to illustrate (again, in an abstract way) effective experimental design. Decoding players who do not plan their decoding stategy will nearly always fail to discover the coded pattern. Try a game or two.

NY Times article: Tracing the cigarette's path from sexy to deadly

2007-03-20T21:06:00.000-06:00

Here's a link to a New York Times article (2007-03-20): Tracing the cigarette's path from sexy to deadly. It details how long it took people and society to realize that cigarettes are dangerous.

National Irag Survey

2007-03-20T14:25:00.000-06:00

ABC News, in conjuction with BBC and ARD TV (Germany) has conducted another opinion survey in Iraq using a random sample. Here is how they selected respondents (see http://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=2954886&page=1 for complete details):

"Four hundred and fifty-eight sampling points were distributed proportionate to population size in each of Iraq's 18 provinces, then in each of the 102 districts within the provinces, then by simple random sampling among Iraq's nearly 11,000 villages or neighborhoods, with urban/rural stratification at each stage."

"Maps or grids were used to select random starting points within each sampling point, with household selection by random interval and within-household selection by the 'next-birthday' method. An average of five interviews were conducted per sampling point. Three of the 458 sampling points were inaccessible for security reasons and were substituted with randomly selected replacements."

One measure of the success of the survey was that none of the interviewers were killed or injured during the course of the research. Comments from the pollsters can be viewed at:

http://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=2954867&page=1

Some of the main results are summarized below:

My own life is going well: 2005/71% said yes and in 2007/39% said yes
I expect my life to get better: 2005/64% said yes and in 2007/35% said yes
My own neighborhood is not safe: 2005/36% said yes and in 2007/74% said yes

The survey was conducted by D3 Systems of Vienna, VA, USA.

From Greg Harrison-MasterMind and Ideas

2007-01-24T15:03:00.000-06:00

I reposted this so it would not be buried under the comments were it was:

Never heard of Mastermind. But I played a game called Chug 21 in a bar a few times. It takes much planning and evaluation, but I don't think we'd be allowed to play it in class.

Got an idea for the class project. For Research Methods in my undergrad, we had to create questionnaires in different ares of policy analysis and present our results. The types of policies presented included free universal healthcare, the debate on oil-drilling in Alaska, the dissolving of the social security fund, and environmental safety regulations.

I know they are all policies on the national level, but they all involve the scientific method, which plays a major role in research methods. Just a thought