Outline and critically evaluate the methods psychologists use to investigate human behaviour

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1PSY112 FUNDAMENTALS OF PSYCHOLOGY

Agnieszka Bielawska-Lovell

Outline and critically evaluate the methods psychologists use to investigate human behaviour

To answer this question the understanding of the main methods which psychologist use must be clear, and the strengths and weaknesses of such methodology must be identified with examples. Psychology means the study of the mind, with psycho meaning mind and logy meaning science (from Carlson and Buskist, 1997).

Psychology is a subject devoted to the understanding of human thoughts, feelings and actions. In fact psychology is really a scientific study of behaviour. Psychology is a science, just like physics and chemistry; psychology goes about finding the answer to a question by observed means. It does this by creating falsifiable and testable hypotheses and then tests them usually by some form of collection of data of observable behaviours. All the information which psychologists gain is derived from carefully planned and designed study. This can involves systematic data-collection actions, in-depth analysis of the data and objective readings of the results.

In its short history as a formal discipline, psychology witnessed the rivalry of various schools of thoughts in their theories of behaviour. The rise and decline of these various schools of thought indicate the progress of psychology as a scientific discipline. A succinct look at the history of psychology shows the spawn of different approaches, starting with structuralism. Structuralism started to look at ‘what the mind is rather what it is for’. This involved using a somewhat inaccurate method called introspection or self-observation. Next came functionalism, which was viewed as an alternative, which was concerned with looking at what the mind was for, rather than what it is. This was followed with such areas as Gestalt psychology, Psychoanalysis (Sigmund Freud), Behaviourism with Pavlov (e.g. Pavlov’s dogs) and his conditioned reaction experiments and information processing. Many ideas from these approaches are now scarcely considered but they all provided direction and a way forward and were all based on experimentation.

The main research strategies or methods used by psychologists to determine human behaviour are experimental method, observational method and correctional methods. However psychologists also use case studies and surveys.  Naturalist observation, surveys and case studies are used to show or describe behaviour. Correlation studies try to predict human behaviour, and experiments try to identify ‘cause and effect’. Experiments also help researchers concentrate on the effect of one or more factors.

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Experiments are the main method used by psychologists to determine behaviour. The first psychological laboratory was set up by Wilhelm Wundt, often described as the "father of psychology", in Leipzig, Germany in 1879, less than 150 years ago. With an experiment the psychologist will usually have some hypothesis, which he or she is aiming to verify or disprove. Experiments use variables, which are manipulated to discover ‘cause and effect’. These variables consist of independent variables (conditions that can be changed to cause an effect), dependent variables (these change and are measured depending on the independent variable), and control variables ...

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