Slide 1

PSYC 1315 I ntroduction to Psychology

Chapter 1:
Mind, Behavior, and Psychological
Science
PSYC 1315 I ntroduction to Psychology
Chapter 1:
Mind, Behavior, and Psychological
Science

PSYC 1315 Introduction to
Psychology
Chapter 1: Mind, Behavior,
and Psychological Science
We begin this study by
addressing the nature of
psychological research and the
methods employed by
psychologists to unlock the
nature of the mind and behavior.
We will be talking about
psychological research using as
an example, the Mozart Effect.
This is the idea that has received
a fair amount of attention in the
popular press that playing
classical music to human infants
as they develop from infancy to
childhood will increase their
intelligence. You may have
some opinion on this matter, but
our purpose is to illustrate how
the scientific method can be
used to evaluate whether the
idea is true or false.

Slide 2
Psychologists Develop New
Knowledge?
Psychologists Develop New
Knowledge?
Core Concept
Psychologists, like researchers in all
other sciences, use the scientific
method to test their ideas empirically.
Core Concept
Psychologists, like researchers in all
other sciences, use the scientific
method to test their ideas empirically.
Key Question Key Question

In answering questions about
how the mind works we rely on
empirical data, that is, facts that
can be observed and measured.
Opinion and common sense are
not empirical data and not a part
of science.

Slide 3
The Five Steps of the Scientific Method The Five Steps of the Scientific Method
Developing a hypothesis
Performing a controlled test
Gathering objective data
Analyzing the results
Publishing, criticizing, and replicating
the results
Developing a hypothesis
Performing a controlled test
Gathering objective data
Analyzing the results
Publishing, criticizing, and replicating
the results

These are the five steps of
scientific research. (Read slide
aloud.) We will consider each
step in turn, and we will be using
the Mozart Effect as a concrete
example of how these steps are
developed. You should know,
however, that there is not a
single way of developing these
steps, particularly step 2,
formulating a controlled test.
This is the creative part of
science, the best scientists are
the ones who carry-out this step
in the most creative and sound
way.

Slide 4
The Five Steps of the Scientific Method The Five Steps of the Scientific Method
Developing a
hypothesis
Performing a
controlled test
Gathering
objective data
Analyzing the
results
Publishing, criticizing,
and replicating
the results
Developing a
hypothesis
Performing a
controlled test
Gathering
objective data
Analyzing the
results
Publishing, criticizing,
and replicating
the results
Hypothesis:
A statement predicting the
outcome of a scientific study
Operational definitions:
Exact procedures used in
establishing experimental conditions
and measurement of results
Hypothesis:
A statement predicting the
outcome of a scientific study
Operational definitions:
Exact procedures used in
establishing experimental conditions
and measurement of results

A hypothesis is a statement
predicting the expected outcome
of the research. So for the
Mozart Effect, we would
hypothesize that playing
classical music to infants will
improve their intellectual ability
at age 5 over infants who are not
systematically exposed to
classical music. This hypothesis
seems clear, but to be
scientifically useful we need
more. We have to consider how
much exposure to music each
infant will receive, at what ages
they will hear the music, and we
need to have some objective
measure of intellectual ability.
Specifying these details will
result in operational
definitions, a key to scientific
research. So lets say we decide
to expose infants from age 3
months to 2 years old to 2 hours
per day of classical music. And
lets say we measure intellectual
ability by giving a standard IQ
test within 2 weeks of the childs
5th birthday. What we have done
is translate some general ideas
into specific operations that can
be carried out to test the general
Mozart Effect hypothesis. There
is not a clear line between step 1
and step 2, Performing a
Controlled Test.

Slide 5
The Five Steps of the Scientific Method The Five Steps of the Scientific Method
Developing a
hypothesis
Performing a
controlled test
Gathering
objective data
Analyzing the
results
Publishing, criticizing,
and replicating
the results
Developing a
hypothesis
Performing a
controlled test
Gathering
objective data
Analyzing the
results
Publishing, criticizing,
and replicating
the results
I ndependent variable:
The variable manipulated by the
experimenter
Randomization:
Using chance alone to determine
presentation order of stimulus
I ndependent variable:
The variable manipulated by the
experimenter
Randomization:
Using chance alone to determine
presentation order of stimulus

Armed with operational
definitions of what is meant by
exposure to classical music and
how to measure its effects, we
have the makings of an
experiment. The infants
exposed to classical music
constitute the experimental
group and a second group of
infants who are not
systematically exposed to
classical music constitute the
control group. The different
experience of the two groups is
referred to as the independent
variable. We refer to the
independent variable as having
two levels: systematic exposure
to classical music vs. no
systematic exposure to classical
music.
Another important aspect of
performing the experiment is to
obtain the infants who will
participate. There are many
regulations about the ethics of
this that we wont go into here.
Suppose our method of getting
infant participants is to advertise
in pediatricians offices for
volunteers, parents doing the
volunteering, of course. How do
we decide which infants will be in
the experimental group, and
which will be in the control
group? What if we put the first
20 volunteers in the
experimental group and the
second 20 in the control group?
Intuitively you probably feel this
is probably not a good way to
assign infants to experimental
conditions. The first 20 parents
volunteering might be the most
enthusiastic about research, or
having their infants involved in
new activities, so the attitude of
the parents might be different
and therefore create a
systematic bias in the
experiment. In order to control
for this possibility the smart
researcher uses random
assignment of infants to the
experimental and control groups.
Essentially the experimenter
would flip a coin as each
volunteer calls in, giving an
equal probability of being in the
experimental and control groups,
which should eliminate any
systematic bias in assignment to
conditions.

Slide 6
The Five Steps of the Scientific Method The Five Steps of the Scientific Method
Developing a
hypothesis
Performing a
controlled test
Gathering
objective data
Analyzing the
results
Publishing, criticizing,
and replicating
the results
Developing a
hypothesis
Performing a
controlled test
Gathering
objective data
Analyzing the
results
Publishing, criticizing,
and replicating
the results
Data:
Information gathered by a
researcher and used to test
a hypothesis
Dependent variable:
The measured outcome
of a study; the responses of
participants in a study
Data:
Information gathered by a
researcher and used to test
a hypothesis
Dependent variable:
The measured outcome
of a study; the responses of
participants in a study

The data for our Mozart Effect
experiment is the IQ test
administered at age 5. The IQ
scores are referred to as the
dependent variable and they
are numbers, which means the
power of mathematics can be
used to evaluate the correctness
of the hypothesis, which is the
next step in the research
process.

Slide 7
The Five Steps of the Scientific Method The Five Steps of the Scientific Method
Developing a
hypothesis
Performing a
controlled test
Gathering
objective data
Analyzing the
results
Publishing, criticizing,
and replicating
the results
Developing a
hypothesis
Performing a
controlled test
Gathering
objective data
Analyzing the
results
Publishing, criticizing,
and replicating
the results
Based on statistical analyses
of results, the hypothesis is
accepted or rejected.
Based on statistical analyses
of results, the hypothesis is
accepted or rejected.

Statistics are used to analyze the
results of the experiment.
Essentially the statistics tell us
how confident we can be about
any observed differences in IQ
scores between the two groups.
For example, if the experimental
group scored 115 on average
and the control group scored
103, the question statistics
answers is, Is this difference
large enough be considered real,
or does it just reflect an
accidental, or chance, difference
between the groups? If the
answer is yes, its a real
difference then the hypothesis is
supported, but if the answer is,
no, its probably a chance
difference, then the hypothesis
is rejected.

Slide 8
The Five Steps of the Scientific Method The Five Steps of the Scientific Method
Developing a
hypothesis
Performing a
controlled test
Gathering
objective data
Analyzing the
results
Publishing, criticizing,
and replicating
the results
Developing a
hypothesis
Performing a
controlled test
Gathering
objective data
Analyzing the
results
Publishing, criticizing,
and replicating
the results

In order for research to be
valuable it must be made public.
This is achieved by publishing
the research, typically in
professional journals. All the
facts and theories in the textbook
for this class are based on such
publications. By publishing the
result of research it makes
possible a further step in the
scientific process, that of
replication. This involves
another researcher doing the
experiment again to see if the
same results occur. If the same,
or highly similar, results occur,
our confidence in the reality of
the original results is raised. The
important point---one that the
general public often doesnt
understand---is that almost
always a single experiment does
not prove a hypothesis; it only
supports it. It takes several
experiments, all, or almost all,
with compatible results, to make
a scientist conclude that a
hypothesis is correct, that it is a
fact. Even then there may be
exceptions to the hypothesis
under some circumstances. In
general, scientists are very
conservative in their approach to
claiming that they have a
fundamental truth about how
the world works.