Lecture Outline

1. Lecture Outline • Developing Research Ideas • Inductive techniques • 1) Case studies • 2) Paradoxical incidents • 3) Analyzing the practitioners rule of thumb • 4) Serendipity • Deductive techniques • 1) Reasoning by analogy • 2) Applying a functional or adaptive analysis • 3) Hypothetico-deductive method • 4) Account for conflicting results • 5) Accounting for exceptions

2. Developing Research Ideas • Inductive techniques • From specific to general • Deductive techniques • From general to specific

3. induction vs. deduction. • ideas,meaning,abstract,conclusions,interpretions,theories • ---------------------------------------------------- • life, data, concrete, evidence, reality, facts

4. Inductive Techniques • 1) Case studies • 2) Paradoxical incidents • 3) Analyzing the practitioners rule of thumb • 4) Serendipity

5. Case Studies and Paradoxical Incidents • 1) Case Studies • Generating hypotheses from carefully documented observations of a particular group or person • For example, the case of Phineas Gage • 2) Paradoxical Incidents • Generating ideas from puzzling or nonsensical observations • For example, noticing that ppl are less likely to receive help when around a lot of other people than when around only a few others

6. Bystander Intervention • Kitty Genovese murder • Thirty-eight witnesses • People feel less personally responsible when they are in a group than when they are alone • Latane and Darley studied this phenomenon

7. Diffusion of Responsibility • The Smoke-Filled Room (Latane & Darley, 1970)SS showed up for an experiment and were asked to fill out a set of questionnaires. While filling out these questionnaires, the room began to fill up with smoke. • SS were tested in three conditions: • 1) Alone in room • 2) w/ 2 confederates • 3) w/ 2 other "real" subjects • DV: Time to notice smoke and time to get help

8. Diffusion of Responsibility Percentage of SS Reporting Smoke • Interpretation: • The Presence of Others decreases our ability to notice other factors in our environment and our tendency to interpret an emergency as an emergency.

9. 3) Practitioner’s Rule of Thumb • Analyzing things that experts, or failures, do in a particular area to achieve specific outcomes. • How do car salespeople sucker us into spending more money than we want to but leave the interaction feeling like we got a good deal??

10. Persuasion Techniques • Foot-in-the-door • Get person to consent to small task first, then ask for larger task • That’s not all technique • Begin with high-priced product, then improve the deal • Door in the face • Begin with a very large request (which will be refused), then make a smaller request • Smaller request is what you want in the first place • Why? • Norm of reciprocity

11. Cialdini (1975) First (large) request: Counsel delinquent boys, 2hrs/wk/2yrs Second (smaller) request: Take delinquent boys to zoo? Experimental group: Large then smaller Control group: Smaller request only Door in the Face Percent Compliance

12. 4) Serendipity • Many discoveries are the result of luck and good fortune! • Discovery of penicillin • Discovery of the ever-useful Velcro 

13. Discovering the Hand Cell • Charles Gross • Single cell recording techniques • Trying to map the receptive field of a cell in the IT • They presented the usual visual stimuli • spots of light, bars and other stimuli • The neurons responded weakly to these stimuli • After studying a particular cell for an extended time decided to move on to another cell.

14. Discovering the Hand Cell • One whimsical experimenter bade the cell a symbolic farewell by waving good-bye. • The cell immediately began to respond rapidly to the moving hand. • Serendipity had struck again! • Researchers began cutting out hand-shaped stimuli and waving them in front of the monkey's eyes. • The stimulus that produced the most vigorous response from the cell: • An upright hand shaped like a monkey's paw.

15. Deductive Techniques • 1) Reasoning by analogy • 2) Applying a functional or adaptive analysis • 3) Hypothetico-deductive method • 4) Account for conflicting results • 5) Accounting for exceptions

16. Reasoning by Analogy • Analyzing similarities between different phenomena to shed light on the less well understood of the two • Cognitive psychology • Computer analogy • Work on memory, attention and problem solving • Attempts to study mental representations and processes • Computer:  • information input through keyboard,  camera, microphone… • Brain:          • information input through six senses = channels    vision  -  touch  -  hearing  -  taste  -  smell  -  temperature

17. The Brain as a Computer

18. 2) Applying a Functional/Adaptive Analysis • A good way to generate hypotheses is by analyzing things that organisms need to do to master an environment or achieve a desired end state • Let’s look at a couple of examples from evolutionary psychology

19. Grounds for Divorce • Men are concerned with finding a woman who will bear their children; they have concerns about paternity • Women are concerned with finding a man who will provide for them and their children • Therefore • Men will seek a divorce if their wife commits adultery. • Women will seek to end their marriage if their husband's cruelty signals that he is not acting as a good provider for his wife and children.

20. Grounds for Divorce

21. Divorce Petitioners • Because women are not fertile as long as men are: • Young women who realize that they have made a mistake need to get out of the relationship as quickly as possible so that they can have children while they are still young enough with another partner. • In contrast because men can continue to father children until they are at least 65, older men can divorce and raise a family with a new younger partner.

22. Divorce Petitioners

23. 3) Hypothetico-Deductive Method • Beginning with a working set of assumptions and deriving one or more logical conclusions from them

24. Terror Management Theory • Like other animals, humans have a drive to self-preservation • Unlike other animals, humans know they are going to die. • The combination of (1) and (2) could lead to “paralyzing terror.” •  To manage this terror, we try to make the world predictable and controllable AND we try to be “good.”

25. TMT •  We create a cultural anxiety buffer: • We try to be valued members of a valid cultural worldview. • Cultural worldview: • A set of beliefs that all members of a particular culture share. • Cultures can promise immortality • One (but not the only) major consequence of being reminded of death: • A need to cling firmly to one’s belief system, expressed as ingroup favoritism

26. To test the hypothesis that mortality salience leads to ingroup favoritism:  Researchers recruited Christian participants  IVs: 1: Think about your own death vs. think about watching TV 2: Christian target versus Jewish target DV: How much do you like the target? Results: Christian targets were liked more than the Jewish targets when participants thought about their own death. Testing the Hypothesis

27. 4) Account for Conflicting Results • Attempting to come up with theoretical reasons why different studies on the same topic have yielded different findings • Early research by social psychologists suggested that using the Internet makes you lonely, but more recent evidence has contradicted that view. • Current researchers are examining some of the conflicting research findings on the connection between Internet use, loneliness, and social interaction.

28. 5) Account for Exceptions • Attempting to generate exceptions or limiting conditions to well-established psychological principles or empirical findings

29. Research shows ppl tend to like those high in ability…. but we might like those who commit a blunder more College quiz bowl (Aronson et al.,1966) Participants heard audiotape of student said to be a candidate for the "College Quiz Bowl." An interview asked difficult questions. Four tapes: Candidate "nearly perfect," no blunder Candidate "nearly perfect," blunder (coffee spill) Candidate "average," no blunder Candidate "average," blunder DV: Rate "liking: of the candidate Pratfall Effect

30. Pratfall Effect