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Research Methods

This lecture explores the intriguing connection between personal living spaces and personality traits. It presents a research framework for examining how behavioral residues in individuals' environments can reveal their dispositions, values, and lifestyle choices. Key hypotheses propose that observers can accurately gauge someone's conscientiousness and attitudes from their living spaces. Methodological approaches include self-reports, behavioral observations, and archival records to analyze the relationship between one's environment and psychological traits. The findings have implications for understanding human behavior in various contexts.

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Research Methods

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  1. Research Methods Lecture 3, 1/28/04

  2. The Research Process In action

  3. Woah, I could tell a lot about that guy from his room 1st step = Personality is revealed in living spaces 2nd step: form specific testable prediction The Research Process

  4. Idea Generation • Personal Living Spaces (PLS) are rich with information about personality, values, abilities, and lifestyle • H1: People’s dispositions are revealed in their behavioral residues • H2: Observers use information in PLS to form impressions about people

  5. Neat Living Space Tidying Up Belongings Displaying Political Icons Collecting Memorabilia Pebble From Favorite Beach Poster of Malcolm X How are dispositions revealed in a person’s living space? Disposition Manifest Behavior Residue of Behavior Conscientiousness Values & Attitudes e.g., Politically Liberal Sentimental

  6. How Will We Find Out? Psychological Measurements • Self-Report* • Ask people to describe their own thoughts, feelings, or behavior. • Behavioral Observation* • Firsthand observation of a subject’s behavior. • Archival Records* • Investigate existing records of past behavior. • *Problems?

  7. Operational Definitions • Define variables in terms of procedures needed to control and measure it ___________ as measured by ______________ • People’s dispositions as measured by ______ • Judgments as measured by _________

  8. Personality** I see myself as someone who is…

  9. Judge-Reported Conscientiousness Conscientiousness Uncluttered Well-organized Neat Organized clothing Relatively empty Organized CDs Organized books Organized stationary Clean Inviting Comfortable Good condition Cheerful Colorful r = .81

  10. r = Correlation • Can observers accurately judge conscientiousness from living spaces? +1 = the more conscientious people said they were, the more their rooms were rated as conscientious. -1 = the more conscientious people said they were, the less their rooms were rated as conscientious. 0 = no relation at all • .81 --- yes, observers can accurately judge conscientiousness from living spaces

  11. The Research Process

  12. Descriptive research Central Tendency Variability Correlation Coefficient Causal Research >2 groups: experimental & control Independent & Dependent variables Random assignment What to do?

  13. Descriptive: Who are you? • Music: • Rap/Hip-hop • TV • Sports • Drink • Bottled water • Spend time • Cooking, eating restaurants, praying, working out • Spend Money • Books, fast-food, car, groceries, clothes, nightlife • General • Laughing, upset stomach, joint pain, flirting

  14. Number of People Mean: 5.2 Median: 6 Mode: 6 Range: 2-6 Standard Deviation: 1.17 Central Tendency Variability When (never - w/in 24hrs) Hip-hop Histogram

  15. Central Tendency Variability Upset stomach Histogram Number of People Mean: 4.1 Median: 4 Mode: 4 Range: 1-6 Standard Deviation: 1.32 When (never - w/in 24hrs)

  16. How variables relate to each other • Why do you have upset stomachs so often?

  17. Why do you have upset stomachs so often? • Nervous about start of school? (insomnia, praying, playing computer games) • Partying too much? (drinking, clubbing) • Food poisoning? (trying new foods, diarrhea) • Life anxiety? (fighting with friends, homesick) • Sick in general? (prescriptions, headache, backache)

  18. What’s related to upset stomachs?

  19. Correlation does not prove causation

  20. What’s the Cause? • New theory… • Control and comparison • Independent variable- “cause” • Dependent variable- “effect” • Randomly assign groups • Experimental • Control

  21. Anxiety causes hunger • DV = Hunger as measured by ___ • self report: • Objective: • IV = Anxiety • Manipulation: • Control: • Random assignment • Experimental • Control • Analysis

  22. Experimenter Expectancy

  23. Pygmalion in the classroom • “Harvard Test of General Ability” • Predicts “academic blooming” or “spurting” • 18 teachers given lists of “top 20%” • Randomly Assigned • End of year re-test (TOGA) • I.Q. Change? • What happened to scores of alleged “bloomers”?

  24. I.Q. Score Gains

  25. Concluding Discussion • Do you agree psychology is the scientific study of behavior and the mind? • What are some problems with psychological research? • Are white, freshman in college generalizable? • Animals vs. Humans?

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