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• The 25 Most Influential Psychological Experiments in History

While each year thousands and thousands of studies are completed in the many specialty areas of psychology, there are a handful that, over the years, have had a lasting impact in the psychological community as a whole. Some of these were dutifully conducted, keeping within the confines of ethical and practical guidelines. Others pushed the boundaries of human behavior during their psychological experiments and created controversies that still linger to this day. And still others were not designed to be true psychological experiments, but ended up as beacons to the psychological community in proving or disproving theories.

This is a list of the 25 most influential psychological experiments still being taught to psychology students of today.

1. A Class Divided

Study conducted by: jane elliott.

Study Conducted in 1968 in an Iowa classroom

Experiment Details: Jane Elliott’s famous experiment was inspired by the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the inspirational life that he led. The third grade teacher developed an exercise, or better yet, a psychological experiment, to help her Caucasian students understand the effects of racism and prejudice.

Elliott divided her class into two separate groups: blue-eyed students and brown-eyed students. On the first day, she labeled the blue-eyed group as the superior group and from that point forward they had extra privileges, leaving the brown-eyed children to represent the minority group. She discouraged the groups from interacting and singled out individual students to stress the negative characteristics of the children in the minority group. What this exercise showed was that the children’s behavior changed almost instantaneously. The group of blue-eyed students performed better academically and even began bullying their brown-eyed classmates. The brown-eyed group experienced lower self-confidence and worse academic performance. The next day, she reversed the roles of the two groups and the blue-eyed students became the minority group.

At the end of the experiment, the children were so relieved that they were reported to have embraced one another and agreed that people should not be judged based on outward appearances. This exercise has since been repeated many times with similar outcomes.

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2. Asch Conformity Study

Study conducted by: dr. solomon asch.

Study Conducted in 1951 at Swarthmore College

Experiment Details: Dr. Solomon Asch conducted a groundbreaking study that was designed to evaluate a person’s likelihood to conform to a standard when there is pressure to do so.

A group of participants were shown pictures with lines of various lengths and were then asked a simple question: Which line is longest? The tricky part of this study was that in each group only one person was a true participant. The others were actors with a script. Most of the actors were instructed to give the wrong answer. Strangely, the one true participant almost always agreed with the majority, even though they knew they were giving the wrong answer.

The results of this study are important when we study social interactions among individuals in groups. This study is a famous example of the temptation many of us experience to conform to a standard during group situations and it showed that people often care more about being the same as others than they do about being right. It is still recognized as one of the most influential psychological experiments for understanding human behavior.

3. Bobo Doll Experiment

Study conducted by: dr. alburt bandura.

Study Conducted between 1961-1963 at Stanford University

In his groundbreaking study he separated participants into three groups:

• one was exposed to a video of an adult showing aggressive behavior towards a Bobo doll
• another was exposed to video of a passive adult playing with the Bobo doll
• the third formed a control group

Children watched their assigned video and then were sent to a room with the same doll they had seen in the video (with the exception of those in the control group). What the researcher found was that children exposed to the aggressive model were more likely to exhibit aggressive behavior towards the doll themselves. The other groups showed little imitative aggressive behavior. For those children exposed to the aggressive model, the number of derivative physical aggressions shown by the boys was 38.2 and 12.7 for the girls.

The study also showed that boys exhibited more aggression when exposed to aggressive male models than boys exposed to aggressive female models. When exposed to aggressive male models, the number of aggressive instances exhibited by boys averaged 104. This is compared to 48.4 aggressive instances exhibited by boys who were exposed to aggressive female models.

While the results for the girls show similar findings, the results were less drastic. When exposed to aggressive female models, the number of aggressive instances exhibited by girls averaged 57.7. This is compared to 36.3 aggressive instances exhibited by girls who were exposed to aggressive male models. The results concerning gender differences strongly supported Bandura’s secondary prediction that children will be more strongly influenced by same-sex models. The Bobo Doll Experiment showed a groundbreaking way to study human behavior and it’s influences.

4. Car Crash Experiment

Study conducted by: elizabeth loftus and john palmer.

Study Conducted in 1974 at The University of California in Irvine

The participants watched slides of a car accident and were asked to describe what had happened as if they were eyewitnesses to the scene. The participants were put into two groups and each group was questioned using different wording such as “how fast was the car driving at the time of impact?” versus “how fast was the car going when it smashed into the other car?” The experimenters found that the use of different verbs affected the participants’ memories of the accident, showing that memory can be easily distorted.

This research suggests that memory can be easily manipulated by questioning technique. This means that information gathered after the event can merge with original memory causing incorrect recall or reconstructive memory. The addition of false details to a memory of an event is now referred to as confabulation. This concept has very important implications for the questions used in police interviews of eyewitnesses.

5. Cognitive Dissonance Experiment

Study conducted by: leon festinger and james carlsmith.

Study Conducted in 1957 at Stanford University

Experiment Details: The concept of cognitive dissonance refers to a situation involving conflicting:

This conflict produces an inherent feeling of discomfort leading to a change in one of the attitudes, beliefs or behaviors to minimize or eliminate the discomfort and restore balance.

Cognitive dissonance was first investigated by Leon Festinger, after an observational study of a cult that believed that the earth was going to be destroyed by a flood. Out of this study was born an intriguing experiment conducted by Festinger and Carlsmith where participants were asked to perform a series of dull tasks (such as turning pegs in a peg board for an hour). Participant’s initial attitudes toward this task were highly negative.

They were then paid either $1 or $20 to tell a participant waiting in the lobby that the tasks were really interesting. Almost all of the participants agreed to walk into the waiting room and persuade the next participant that the boring experiment would be fun. When the participants were later asked to evaluate the experiment, the participants who were paid only $1 rated the tedious task as more fun and enjoyable than the participants who were paid $20 to lie.

Being paid only $1 is not sufficient incentive for lying and so those who were paid $1 experienced dissonance. They could only overcome that cognitive dissonance by coming to believe that the tasks really were interesting and enjoyable. Being paid $20 provides a reason for turning pegs and there is therefore no dissonance.

6. Fantz’s Looking Chamber

Study conducted by: robert l. fantz.

Study Conducted in 1961 at the University of Illinois

Experiment Details: The study conducted by Robert L. Fantz is among the simplest, yet most important in the field of infant development and vision. In 1961, when this experiment was conducted, there very few ways to study what was going on in the mind of an infant. Fantz realized that the best way was to simply watch the actions and reactions of infants. He understood the fundamental factor that if there is something of interest near humans, they generally look at it.

To test this concept, Fantz set up a display board with two pictures attached. On one was a bulls-eye. On the other was the sketch of a human face. This board was hung in a chamber where a baby could lie safely underneath and see both images. Then, from behind the board, invisible to the baby, he peeked through a hole to watch what the baby looked at. This study showed that a two-month old baby looked twice as much at the human face as it did at the bulls-eye. This suggests that human babies have some powers of pattern and form selection. Before this experiment it was thought that babies looked out onto a chaotic world of which they could make little sense.

7. Hawthorne Effect

Study conducted by: henry a. landsberger.

Study Conducted in 1955 at Hawthorne Works in Chicago, Illinois

Landsberger performed the study by analyzing data from experiments conducted between 1924 and 1932, by Elton Mayo, at the Hawthorne Works near Chicago. The company had commissioned studies to evaluate whether the level of light in a building changed the productivity of the workers. What Mayo found was that the level of light made no difference in productivity. The workers increased their output whenever the amount of light was switched from a low level to a high level, or vice versa.

The researchers noticed a tendency that the workers’ level of efficiency increased when any variable was manipulated. The study showed that the output changed simply because the workers were aware that they were under observation. The conclusion was that the workers felt important because they were pleased to be singled out. They increased productivity as a result. Being singled out was the factor dictating increased productivity, not the changing lighting levels, or any of the other factors that they experimented upon.

The Hawthorne Effect has become one of the hardest inbuilt biases to eliminate or factor into the design of any experiment in psychology and beyond.

8. Kitty Genovese Case

Study conducted by: new york police force.

Study Conducted in 1964 in New York City

Experiment Details: The murder case of Kitty Genovese was never intended to be a psychological experiment, however it ended up having serious implications for the field.

According to a New York Times article, almost 40 neighbors witnessed Kitty Genovese being savagely attacked and murdered in Queens, New York in 1964. Not one neighbor called the police for help. Some reports state that the attacker briefly left the scene and later returned to “finish off” his victim. It was later uncovered that many of these facts were exaggerated. (There were more likely only a dozen witnesses and records show that some calls to police were made).

What this case later become famous for is the “Bystander Effect,” which states that the more bystanders that are present in a social situation, the less likely it is that anyone will step in and help. This effect has led to changes in medicine, psychology and many other areas. One famous example is the way CPR is taught to new learners. All students in CPR courses learn that they must assign one bystander the job of alerting authorities which minimizes the chances of no one calling for assistance.

9. Learned Helplessness Experiment

Study conducted by: martin seligman.

Study Conducted in 1967 at the University of Pennsylvania

Seligman’s experiment involved the ringing of a bell and then the administration of a light shock to a dog. After a number of pairings, the dog reacted to the shock even before it happened. As soon as the dog heard the bell, he reacted as though he’d already been shocked.

During the course of this study something unexpected happened. Each dog was placed in a large crate that was divided down the middle with a low fence. The dog could see and jump over the fence easily. The floor on one side of the fence was electrified, but not on the other side of the fence. Seligman placed each dog on the electrified side and administered a light shock. He expected the dog to jump to the non-shocking side of the fence. In an unexpected turn, the dogs simply laid down.

The hypothesis was that as the dogs learned from the first part of the experiment that there was nothing they could do to avoid the shocks, they gave up in the second part of the experiment. To prove this hypothesis the experimenters brought in a new set of animals and found that dogs with no history in the experiment would jump over the fence.

This condition was described as learned helplessness. A human or animal does not attempt to get out of a negative situation because the past has taught them that they are helpless.

10. Little Albert Experiment

Study conducted by: john b. watson and rosalie rayner.

Study Conducted in 1920 at Johns Hopkins University

The experiment began by placing a white rat in front of the infant, who initially had no fear of the animal. Watson then produced a loud sound by striking a steel bar with a hammer every time little Albert was presented with the rat. After several pairings (the noise and the presentation of the white rat), the boy began to cry and exhibit signs of fear every time the rat appeared in the room. Watson also created similar conditioned reflexes with other common animals and objects (rabbits, Santa beard, etc.) until Albert feared them all.

This study proved that classical conditioning works on humans. One of its most important implications is that adult fears are often connected to early childhood experiences.

11. Magical Number Seven

Study conducted by: george a. miller.

Study Conducted in 1956 at Princeton University

Experiment Details:   Frequently referred to as “ Miller’s Law,” the Magical Number Seven experiment purports that the number of objects an average human can hold in working memory is 7 ± 2. This means that the human memory capacity typically includes strings of words or concepts ranging from 5-9. This information on the limits to the capacity for processing information became one of the most highly cited papers in psychology.

The Magical Number Seven Experiment was published in 1956 by cognitive psychologist George A. Miller of Princeton University’s Department of Psychology in Psychological Review .  In the article, Miller discussed a concurrence between the limits of one-dimensional absolute judgment and the limits of short-term memory.

In a one-dimensional absolute-judgment task, a person is presented with a number of stimuli that vary on one dimension (such as 10 different tones varying only in pitch). The person responds to each stimulus with a corresponding response (learned before).

Performance is almost perfect up to five or six different stimuli but declines as the number of different stimuli is increased. This means that a human’s maximum performance on one-dimensional absolute judgment can be described as an information store with the maximum capacity of approximately 2 to 3 bits of information There is the ability to distinguish between four and eight alternatives.

12. Pavlov’s Dog Experiment

Study conducted by: ivan pavlov.

Study Conducted in the 1890s at the Military Medical Academy in St. Petersburg, Russia

Pavlov began with the simple idea that there are some things that a dog does not need to learn. He observed that dogs do not learn to salivate when they see food. This reflex is “hard wired” into the dog. This is an unconditioned response (a stimulus-response connection that required no learning).

Pavlov outlined that there are unconditioned responses in the animal by presenting a dog with a bowl of food and then measuring its salivary secretions. In the experiment, Pavlov used a bell as his neutral stimulus. Whenever he gave food to his dogs, he also rang a bell. After a number of repeats of this procedure, he tried the bell on its own. What he found was that the bell on its own now caused an increase in salivation. The dog had learned to associate the bell and the food. This learning created a new behavior. The dog salivated when he heard the bell. Because this response was learned (or conditioned), it is called a conditioned response. The neutral stimulus has become a conditioned stimulus.

This theory came to be known as classical conditioning.

13. Robbers Cave Experiment

Study conducted by: muzafer and carolyn sherif.

Study Conducted in 1954 at the University of Oklahoma

Experiment Details: This experiment, which studied group conflict, is considered by most to be outside the lines of what is considered ethically sound.

In 1954 researchers at the University of Oklahoma assigned 22 eleven- and twelve-year-old boys from similar backgrounds into two groups. The two groups were taken to separate areas of a summer camp facility where they were able to bond as social units. The groups were housed in separate cabins and neither group knew of the other’s existence for an entire week. The boys bonded with their cabin mates during that time. Once the two groups were allowed to have contact, they showed definite signs of prejudice and hostility toward each other even though they had only been given a very short time to develop their social group. To increase the conflict between the groups, the experimenters had them compete against each other in a series of activities. This created even more hostility and eventually the groups refused to eat in the same room. The final phase of the experiment involved turning the rival groups into friends. The fun activities the experimenters had planned like shooting firecrackers and watching movies did not initially work, so they created teamwork exercises where the two groups were forced to collaborate. At the end of the experiment, the boys decided to ride the same bus home, demonstrating that conflict can be resolved and prejudice overcome through cooperation.

Many critics have compared this study to Golding’s Lord of the Flies novel as a classic example of prejudice and conflict resolution.

14. Ross’ False Consensus Effect Study

Study conducted by: lee ross.

Study Conducted in 1977 at Stanford University

Experiment Details: In 1977, a social psychology professor at Stanford University named Lee Ross conducted an experiment that, in lay terms, focuses on how people can incorrectly conclude that others think the same way they do, or form a “false consensus” about the beliefs and preferences of others. Ross conducted the study in order to outline how the “false consensus effect” functions in humans.

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In the first part of the study, participants were asked to read about situations in which a conflict occurred and then were told two alternative ways of responding to the situation. They were asked to do three things:

• Guess which option other people would choose
• Say which option they themselves would choose
• Describe the attributes of the person who would likely choose each of the two options

What the study showed was that most of the subjects believed that other people would do the same as them, regardless of which of the two responses they actually chose themselves. This phenomenon is referred to as the false consensus effect, where an individual thinks that other people think the same way they do when they may not. The second observation coming from this important study is that when participants were asked to describe the attributes of the people who will likely make the choice opposite of their own, they made bold and sometimes negative predictions about the personalities of those who did not share their choice.

15. The Schachter and Singer Experiment on Emotion

Study conducted by: stanley schachter and jerome e. singer.

Study Conducted in 1962 at Columbia University

Experiment Details: In 1962 Schachter and Singer conducted a ground breaking experiment to prove their theory of emotion.

In the study, a group of 184 male participants were injected with epinephrine, a hormone that induces arousal including increased heartbeat, trembling, and rapid breathing. The research participants were told that they were being injected with a new medication to test their eyesight. The first group of participants was informed the possible side effects that the injection might cause while the second group of participants were not. The participants were then placed in a room with someone they thought was another participant, but was actually a confederate in the experiment. The confederate acted in one of two ways: euphoric or angry. Participants who had not been informed about the effects of the injection were more likely to feel either happier or angrier than those who had been informed.

What Schachter and Singer were trying to understand was the ways in which cognition or thoughts influence human emotion. Their study illustrates the importance of how people interpret their physiological states, which form an important component of your emotions. Though their cognitive theory of emotional arousal dominated the field for two decades, it has been criticized for two main reasons: the size of the effect seen in the experiment was not that significant and other researchers had difficulties repeating the experiment.

16. Selective Attention / Invisible Gorilla Experiment

Study conducted by: daniel simons and christopher chabris.

Study Conducted in 1999 at Harvard University

Experiment Details: In 1999 Simons and Chabris conducted their famous awareness test at Harvard University.

Participants in the study were asked to watch a video and count how many passes occurred between basketball players on the white team. The video moves at a moderate pace and keeping track of the passes is a relatively easy task. What most people fail to notice amidst their counting is that in the middle of the test, a man in a gorilla suit walked onto the court and stood in the center before walking off-screen.

The study found that the majority of the subjects did not notice the gorilla at all, proving that humans often overestimate their ability to effectively multi-task. What the study set out to prove is that when people are asked to attend to one task, they focus so strongly on that element that they may miss other important details.

17. Stanford Prison Study

Study conducted by philip zimbardo.

Study Conducted in 1971 at Stanford University

The Stanford Prison Experiment was designed to study behavior of “normal” individuals when assigned a role of prisoner or guard. College students were recruited to participate. They were assigned roles of “guard” or “inmate.”  Zimbardo played the role of the warden. The basement of the psychology building was the set of the prison. Great care was taken to make it look and feel as realistic as possible.

The prison guards were told to run a prison for two weeks. They were told not to physically harm any of the inmates during the study. After a few days, the prison guards became very abusive verbally towards the inmates. Many of the prisoners became submissive to those in authority roles. The Stanford Prison Experiment inevitably had to be cancelled because some of the participants displayed troubling signs of breaking down mentally.

Although the experiment was conducted very unethically, many psychologists believe that the findings showed how much human behavior is situational. People will conform to certain roles if the conditions are right. The Stanford Prison Experiment remains one of the most famous psychology experiments of all time.

18. Stanley Milgram Experiment

Study conducted by stanley milgram.

Study Conducted in 1961 at Stanford University

Experiment Details: This 1961 study was conducted by Yale University psychologist Stanley Milgram. It was designed to measure people’s willingness to obey authority figures when instructed to perform acts that conflicted with their morals. The study was based on the premise that humans will inherently take direction from authority figures from very early in life.

Participants were told they were participating in a study on memory. They were asked to watch another person (an actor) do a memory test. They were instructed to press a button that gave an electric shock each time the person got a wrong answer. (The actor did not actually receive the shocks, but pretended they did).

Participants were told to play the role of “teacher” and administer electric shocks to “the learner,” every time they answered a question incorrectly. The experimenters asked the participants to keep increasing the shocks. Most of them obeyed even though the individual completing the memory test appeared to be in great pain. Despite these protests, many participants continued the experiment when the authority figure urged them to. They increased the voltage after each wrong answer until some eventually administered what would be lethal electric shocks.

This experiment showed that humans are conditioned to obey authority and will usually do so even if it goes against their natural morals or common sense.

19. Surrogate Mother Experiment

Study conducted by: harry harlow.

Study Conducted from 1957-1963 at the University of Wisconsin

Experiment Details: In a series of controversial experiments during the late 1950s and early 1960s, Harry Harlow studied the importance of a mother’s love for healthy childhood development.

In order to do this he separated infant rhesus monkeys from their mothers a few hours after birth and left them to be raised by two “surrogate mothers.” One of the surrogates was made of wire with an attached bottle for food. The other was made of soft terrycloth but lacked food. The researcher found that the baby monkeys spent much more time with the cloth mother than the wire mother, thereby proving that affection plays a greater role than sustenance when it comes to childhood development. They also found that the monkeys that spent more time cuddling the soft mother grew up to healthier.

This experiment showed that love, as demonstrated by physical body contact, is a more important aspect of the parent-child bond than the provision of basic needs. These findings also had implications in the attachment between fathers and their infants when the mother is the source of nourishment.

20. The Good Samaritan Experiment

Study conducted by: john darley and daniel batson.

Study Conducted in 1973 at The Princeton Theological Seminary (Researchers were from Princeton University)

Experiment Details: In 1973, an experiment was created by John Darley and Daniel Batson, to investigate the potential causes that underlie altruistic behavior. The researchers set out three hypotheses they wanted to test:

• People thinking about religion and higher principles would be no more inclined to show helping behavior than laymen.
• People in a rush would be much less likely to show helping behavior.
• People who are religious for personal gain would be less likely to help than people who are religious because they want to gain some spiritual and personal insights into the meaning of life.

Student participants were given some religious teaching and instruction. They were then were told to travel from one building to the next. Between the two buildings was a man lying injured and appearing to be in dire need of assistance. The first variable being tested was the degree of urgency impressed upon the subjects, with some being told not to rush and others being informed that speed was of the essence.

The results of the experiment were intriguing, with the haste of the subject proving to be the overriding factor. When the subject was in no hurry, nearly two-thirds of people stopped to lend assistance. When the subject was in a rush, this dropped to one in ten.

People who were on the way to deliver a speech about helping others were nearly twice as likely to help as those delivering other sermons,. This showed that the thoughts of the individual were a factor in determining helping behavior. Religious beliefs did not appear to make much difference on the results. Being religious for personal gain, or as part of a spiritual quest, did not appear to make much of an impact on the amount of helping behavior shown.

21. The Halo Effect Experiment

Study conducted by: richard e. nisbett and timothy decamp wilson.

Study Conducted in 1977 at the University of Michigan

Experiment Details: The Halo Effect states that people generally assume that people who are physically attractive are more likely to:

• be intelligent
• be friendly
• display good judgment

To prove their theory, Nisbett and DeCamp Wilson created a study to prove that people have little awareness of the nature of the Halo Effect. They’re not aware that it influences:

• their personal judgments
• the production of a more complex social behavior

In the experiment, college students were the research participants. They were asked to evaluate a psychology instructor as they view him in a videotaped interview. The students were randomly assigned to one of two groups. Each group was shown one of two different interviews with the same instructor. The instructor is a native French-speaking Belgian who spoke English with a noticeable accent. In the first video, the instructor presented himself as someone:

• respectful of his students’ intelligence and motives
• flexible in his approach to teaching
• enthusiastic about his subject matter

In the second interview, he presented himself as much more unlikable. He was cold and distrustful toward the students and was quite rigid in his teaching style.

After watching the videos, the subjects were asked to rate the lecturer on:

• physical appearance

His mannerisms and accent were kept the same in both versions of videos. The subjects were asked to rate the professor on an 8-point scale ranging from “like extremely” to “dislike extremely.” Subjects were also told that the researchers were interested in knowing “how much their liking for the teacher influenced the ratings they just made.” Other subjects were asked to identify how much the characteristics they just rated influenced their liking of the teacher.

After responding to the questionnaire, the respondents were puzzled about their reactions to the videotapes and to the questionnaire items. The students had no idea why they gave one lecturer higher ratings. Most said that how much they liked the lecturer had not affected their evaluation of his individual characteristics at all.

The interesting thing about this study is that people can understand the phenomenon, but they are unaware when it is occurring. Without realizing it, humans make judgments. Even when it is pointed out, they may still deny that it is a product of the halo effect phenomenon.

22. The Marshmallow Test

Study conducted by: walter mischel.

Study Conducted in 1972 at Stanford University

In his 1972 Marshmallow Experiment, children ages four to six were taken into a room where a marshmallow was placed in front of them on a table. Before leaving each of the children alone in the room, the experimenter informed them that they would receive a second marshmallow if the first one was still on the table after they returned in 15 minutes. The examiner recorded how long each child resisted eating the marshmallow and noted whether it correlated with the child’s success in adulthood. A small number of the 600 children ate the marshmallow immediately and one-third delayed gratification long enough to receive the second marshmallow.

In follow-up studies, Mischel found that those who deferred gratification were significantly more competent and received higher SAT scores than their peers. This characteristic likely remains with a person for life. While this study seems simplistic, the findings outline some of the foundational differences in individual traits that can predict success.

23. The Monster Study

Study conducted by: wendell johnson.

Study Conducted in 1939 at the University of Iowa

Experiment Details: The Monster Study received this negative title due to the unethical methods that were used to determine the effects of positive and negative speech therapy on children.

Wendell Johnson of the University of Iowa selected 22 orphaned children, some with stutters and some without. The children were in two groups. The group of children with stutters was placed in positive speech therapy, where they were praised for their fluency. The non-stutterers were placed in negative speech therapy, where they were disparaged for every mistake in grammar that they made.

As a result of the experiment, some of the children who received negative speech therapy suffered psychological effects and retained speech problems for the rest of their lives. They were examples of the significance of positive reinforcement in education.

The initial goal of the study was to investigate positive and negative speech therapy. However, the implication spanned much further into methods of teaching for young children.

24. Violinist at the Metro Experiment

Study conducted by: staff at the washington post.

Study Conducted in 2007 at a Washington D.C. Metro Train Station

During the study, pedestrians rushed by without realizing that the musician playing at the entrance to the metro stop was Grammy-winning musician, Joshua Bell. Two days before playing in the subway, he sold out at a theater in Boston where the seats average $100. He played one of the most intricate pieces ever written with a violin worth 3.5 million dollars. In the 45 minutes the musician played his violin, only 6 people stopped and stayed for a while. Around 20 gave him money, but continued to walk their normal pace. He collected $32.

The study and the subsequent article organized by the Washington Post was part of a social experiment looking at:

• the priorities of people

Gene Weingarten wrote about the social experiment: “In a banal setting at an inconvenient time, would beauty transcend?” Later he won a Pulitzer Prize for his story. Some of the questions the article addresses are:

• Do we perceive beauty?
• Do we stop to appreciate it?
• Do we recognize the talent in an unexpected context?

As it turns out, many of us are not nearly as perceptive to our environment as we might like to think.

25. Visual Cliff Experiment

Study conducted by: eleanor gibson and richard walk.

Study Conducted in 1959 at Cornell University

Experiment Details: In 1959, psychologists Eleanor Gibson and Richard Walk set out to study depth perception in infants. They wanted to know if depth perception is a learned behavior or if it is something that we are born with. To study this, Gibson and Walk conducted the visual cliff experiment.

They studied 36 infants between the ages of six and 14 months, all of whom could crawl. The infants were placed one at a time on a visual cliff. A visual cliff was created using a large glass table that was raised about a foot off the floor. Half of the glass table had a checker pattern underneath in order to create the appearance of a ‘shallow side.’

In order to create a ‘deep side,’ a checker pattern was created on the floor; this side is the visual cliff. The placement of the checker pattern on the floor creates the illusion of a sudden drop-off. Researchers placed a foot-wide centerboard between the shallow side and the deep side. Gibson and Walk found the following:

• Nine of the infants did not move off the centerboard.
• All of the 27 infants who did move crossed into the shallow side when their mothers called them from the shallow side.
• Three of the infants crawled off the visual cliff toward their mother when called from the deep side.
• When called from the deep side, the remaining 24 children either crawled to the shallow side or cried because they could not cross the visual cliff and make it to their mother.

What this study helped demonstrate is that depth perception is likely an inborn train in humans.

Among these experiments and psychological tests, we see boundaries pushed and theories taking on a life of their own. It is through the endless stream of psychological experimentation that we can see simple hypotheses become guiding theories for those in this field. The greater field of psychology became a formal field of experimental study in 1879, when Wilhelm Wundt established the first laboratory dedicated solely to psychological research in Leipzig, Germany. Wundt was the first person to refer to himself as a psychologist. Since 1879, psychology has grown into a massive collection of:

• methods of practice

It’s also a specialty area in the field of healthcare. None of this would have been possible without these and many other important psychological experiments that have stood the test of time.

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About the Author

After earning a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology from Rutgers University and then a Master of Science in Clinical and Forensic Psychology from Drexel University, Kristen began a career as a therapist at two prisons in Philadelphia. At the same time she volunteered as a rape crisis counselor, also in Philadelphia. After a few years in the field she accepted a teaching position at a local college where she currently teaches online psychology courses. Kristen began writing in college and still enjoys her work as a writer, editor, professor and mother.

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61 intriguing psychology research topics to explore

Last updated

11 January 2024

Reviewed by

Brittany Ferri, PhD, OTR/L

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Psychology is an incredibly diverse, critical, and ever-changing area of study in the medical and health industries. Because of this, it’s a common area of study for students and healthcare professionals.

We’re walking you through picking the perfect topic for your upcoming paper or study. Keep reading for plenty of example topics to pique your interest and curiosity.

• How to choose a psychology research topic

Exploring a psychology-based topic for your research project? You need to pick a specific area of interest to collect compelling data. 

Use these tips to help you narrow down which psychology topics to research:

Focus on a particular area of psychology

The most effective psychological research focuses on a smaller, niche concept or disorder within the scope of a study. 

Psychology is a broad and fascinating area of science, including everything from diagnosed mental health disorders to sports performance mindset assessments. 

This gives you plenty of different avenues to explore. Having a hard time choosing? Check out our list of 61 ideas further down in this article to get started.

Read the latest clinical studies

Once you’ve picked a more niche topic to explore, you need to do your due diligence and explore other research projects on the same topic. 

This practice will help you learn more about your chosen topic, ask more specific questions, and avoid covering existing projects. 

For the best results, we recommend creating a research folder of associated published papers to reference throughout your project. This makes it much easier to cite direct references and find inspiration down the line.

Find a topic you enjoy and ask questions

Once you’ve spent time researching and collecting references for your study, you finally get to explore. 

Whether this research project is for work, school, or just for fun, having a passion for your research will make the project much more enjoyable. (Trust us, there will be times when that is the only thing that keeps you going.) 

Now you’ve decided on the topic, ask more nuanced questions you might want to explore. 

If you can, pick the direction that interests you the most to make the research process much more enjoyable.

• 61 psychology topics to research in 2024

Need some extra help starting your psychology research project on the right foot? Explore our list of 61 cutting-edge, in-demand psychology research topics to use as a starting point for your research journey.

• Psychology research topics for university students

As a university student, it can be hard to pick a research topic that fits the scope of your classes and is still compelling and unique. 

Here are a few exciting topics we recommend exploring for your next assigned research project:

Mental health in post-secondary students

Seeking post-secondary education is a stressful and overwhelming experience for most students, making this topic a great choice to explore for your in-class research paper. 

Examples of post-secondary mental health research topics include:

Student mental health status during exam season

Mental health disorder prevalence based on study major

The impact of chronic school stress on overall quality of life

The impacts of cyberbullying

Cyberbullying can occur at all ages, starting as early as elementary school and carrying through into professional workplaces. 

Examples of cyberbullying-based research topics you can study include:

The impact of cyberbullying on self-esteem

Common reasons people engage in cyberbullying 

Cyberbullying themes and commonly used terms

Cyberbullying habits in children vs. adults

The long-term effects of cyberbullying

• Clinical psychology research topics

If you’re looking to take a more clinical approach to your next project, here are a few topics that involve direct patient assessment for you to consider:

Chronic pain and mental health

Living with chronic pain dramatically impacts every aspect of a person’s life, including their mental and emotional health. 

Here are a few examples of in-demand pain-related psychology research topics:

The connection between diabetic neuropathy and depression

Neurological pain and its connection to mental health disorders

Efficacy of meditation and mindfulness for pain management

The long-term effects of insomnia

Insomnia is where you have difficulty falling or staying asleep. It’s a common health concern that impacts millions of people worldwide. 

This is an excellent topic because insomnia can have a variety of causes, offering many research possibilities. 

Here are a few compelling psychology research topics about insomnia you could investigate:

The prevalence of insomnia based on age, gender, and ethnicity

Insomnia and its impact on workplace productivity

The connection between insomnia and mental health disorders

Efficacy and use of melatonin supplements for insomnia

The risks and benefits of prescription insomnia medications

Lifestyle options for managing insomnia symptoms

The efficacy of mental health treatment options

Management and treatment of mental health conditions is an ever-changing area of study. If you can witness or participate in mental health therapies, this can make a great research project. 

Examples of mental health treatment-related psychology research topics include:

The efficacy of cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) for patients with severe anxiety

The benefits and drawbacks of group vs. individual therapy sessions

Music therapy for mental health disorders

Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) for patients with depression 

• Controversial psychology research paper topics

If you are looking to explore a more cutting-edge or modern psychology topic, you can delve into a variety of controversial and topical options:

The impact of social media and digital platforms

Ever since access to internet forums and video games became more commonplace, there’s been growing concern about the impact these digital platforms have on mental health. 

Examples of social media and video game-related psychology research topics include:

The effect of edited images on self-confidence

How social media platforms impact social behavior

Video games and their impact on teenage anger and violence

Digital communication and the rapid spread of misinformation

The development of digital friendships

Psychotropic medications for mental health

In recent years, the interest in using psychoactive medications to treat and manage health conditions has increased despite their inherently controversial nature. 

Examples of psychotropic medication-related research topics include:

The risks and benefits of using psilocybin mushrooms for managing anxiety

The impact of marijuana on early-onset psychosis

Childhood marijuana use and related prevalence of mental health conditions

Ketamine and its use for complex PTSD (C-PTSD) symptom management

The effect of long-term psychedelic use and mental health conditions

• Mental health disorder research topics

As one of the most popular subsections of psychology, studying mental health disorders and how they impact quality of life is an essential and impactful area of research. 

While studies in these areas are common, there’s always room for additional exploration, including the following hot-button topics:

Anxiety and depression disorders

Anxiety and depression are well-known and heavily researched mental health disorders. 

Despite this, we still don’t know many things about these conditions, making them great candidates for psychology research projects:

Social anxiety and its connection to chronic loneliness

C-PTSD symptoms and causes

The development of phobias

Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) behaviors and symptoms

Depression triggers and causes

Self-care tools and resources for depression

The prevalence of anxiety and depression in particular age groups or geographic areas

Bipolar disorder

Bipolar disorder is a complex and multi-faceted area of psychology research. 

Use your research skills to learn more about this condition and its impact by choosing any of the following topics:

Early signs of bipolar disorder

The incidence of bipolar disorder in young adults

The efficacy of existing bipolar treatment options

Bipolar medication side effects

Cognitive behavioral therapy for people with bipolar 

Schizoaffective disorder

Schizoaffective disorder is often stigmatized, and less common mental health disorders are a hotbed for new and exciting research. 

Here are a few examples of interesting research topics related to this mental health disorder:

The prevalence of schizoaffective disorder by certain age groups or geographic locations

Risk factors for developing schizoaffective disorder

The prevalence and content of auditory and visual hallucinations

Alternative therapies for schizoaffective disorder

• Societal and systematic psychology research topics

Modern society’s impact is deeply enmeshed in our mental and emotional health on a personal and community level. 

Here are a few examples of societal and systemic psychology research topics to explore in more detail:

Access to mental health services

While mental health awareness has risen over the past few decades, access to quality mental health treatment and resources is still not equitable. 

This can significantly impact the severity of a person’s mental health symptoms, which can result in worse health outcomes if left untreated. 

Explore this crucial issue and provide information about the need for improved mental health resource access by studying any of the following topics:

Rural vs. urban access to mental health resources

Access to crisis lines by location

Wait times for emergency mental health services

Inequities in mental health access based on income and location

Insurance coverage for mental health services

Systemic racism and mental health

Societal systems and the prevalence of systemic racism heavily impact every aspect of a person’s overall health.

Researching these topics draws attention to existing problems and contributes valuable insights into ways to improve access to care moving forward.

Examples of systemic racism-related psychology research topics include: 

Access to mental health resources based on race

The prevalence of BIPOC mental health therapists in a chosen area

The impact of systemic racism on mental health and self-worth

Racism training for mental health workers

The prevalence of mental health disorders in discriminated groups

LGBTQIA+ mental health concerns

Research about LGBTQIA+ people and their mental health needs is a unique area of study to explore for your next research project. It’s a commonly overlooked and underserved community.

Examples of LGBTQIA+ psychology research topics to consider include:

Mental health supports for queer teens and children

The impact of queer safe spaces on mental health

The prevalence of mental health disorders in the LGBTQIA+ community

The benefits of queer mentorship and found family

Substance misuse in LQBTQIA+ youth and adults

• Collect data and identify trends with Dovetail

Psychology research is an exciting and competitive study area, making it the perfect choice for projects or papers.

Take the headache out of analyzing your data and instantly access the insights you need to complete your next psychology research project by teaming up with Dovetail today.

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Breakthroughs and Discoveries in Psychological Science: 2020 Year in Review

• Psychological Science

Many of the major news stories of 2020 were closely tied to understanding human behavior, including efforts to contain the spread of COVID-19, understand political divides and social conflicts, and address enduring racial disparities and inequality.  

A wealth of research published by the Association for Psychological Science (APS) addresses these and other important topics. The following is a selection of some of APS’s most newsworthy research and highly cited publications from 2020. These stories emphasize the importance of peer-reviewed psychological research and its impact on society.  

Top 10 APS News Releases of 2020, Metrics Provided by  Newswise  

Romance, Scent, and Sleep: The Stuff that Dreams Are Made Of : Research published in the journal  Psychological Science  suggests that the scent of a romantic partner can improve your quality of sleep. This is true regardless of whether you are consciously aware that the scent is even present.  

Violent Video Games and Aggression: The Connection Is Dubious, at Best : The coronavirus pandemic put a damper on many traditional summertime activities for kids, giving them more opportunity to socialize with friends virtually through online gaming. But many hours of extra screen time worried some parents, especially in light of a 2015 report linking violent video games with aggressive behavior in children. A reanalysis of previous findings published in the journal  Perspectives on Psychological Science  found no clear link between video game violence and aggression in children. 

Stemming the Spread of Misinformation on Social Media : The dangers of COVID-19 could worsen if misinformation on social media continues to spread unchecked, according to research published in  Psychological Science . Though there is no practical way to fully stem the tide of harmful misinformation on social media, certain tactics could help improve the quality of information that people share online about this deadly disease. 

Psychological Science and COVID-19: Conspiracy Theories : Why are conspiracy theories so popular? Who believes them? Why do people believe them? What are some of the consequences of conspiracy theories, and can such theories be harmful? These questions are explored by Karen Douglas, professor of social psychology at the University of Kent, UK, whose research focuses on beliefs in conspiracy theories.  

Pandemic Effects on Marriage and Relationships : Beyond its economic toll, COVID-19 is also having a negative impact on many relationships. Expert commentary from Paula Pietromonaco, professor emerita at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, explores this facet of the pandemic and how interactions in marital and other close relationships shape each partner’s emotional and physical health. 

Trigger Warnings Fail to Help and May Even Harm : A study published in the journal  Clinical Psychological Science  shines light on the value and potential harm of trigger warnings, the term used to alert readers or viewers to potentially unsettling content. This research suggests that trigger warnings offer little to no help in avoiding painful memories and can even be harmful for the survivors of past emotional trauma.  

Contracting COVID-19: Lifestyle and Social Connections May Play a Role : Research published in  Psychological Science  indicates that unhealthy lifestyle choices, including smoking and lack of exercise, along with emotional stressors like social isolation and interpersonal conflicts are important risk factors for developing upper respiratory infections. It is possible these same factors also increase the risk of contracting COVID-19. 

Does Bedtime Media Use Harm Children’s Sleep? Only If They Struggle to Self-Regulate Behavior : Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, one concern for many parents has been the impact of additional TV or computer screen time on their children and their already disrupted sleep habits. A study published in  Psychological Science  found that media use in the hour preceding bedtime impacts the sleep only of children who struggle to self-regulate their behavior. 

Health and Happiness Depend on Each Other, Psychological Science Says : This research adds to the growing body of evidence that happiness not only feels good, but it is also good for your physical health. Research published in  Psychological Science  shows that both online and in-person psychological interventions—tactics specifically designed to boost subjective well-being—have positive effects on self-reported physical health.  

Claiming Journalism Is ‘Fake News’ May Satisfy a Personal Need for an Orderly World : Research published in  Psychological Science  reveals that the degree to which people level accusations of fake news against news outlets is at least partially associated with a personal need for an orderly and structured environment. 

Top 10 APS Journal Articles Based on  Altmetric Attention Scores  

Aging in an Era of Fake News : Older adults appear to be particularly susceptible to misinformation (e.g., they shared the most fake news during the 2016 U.S. election). In  Current Directions in Psychological Science , researchers suggest that social changes in late adulthood, including difficulty in detecting lies and less emphasis on accuracy when communicating, might be partly responsible for susceptibility to misinformation. Moreover, older adults are less experienced with social media and may struggle to evaluate the veracity of content. Interventions that take into account older adults’ social changes and digital literacy might help to reduce their susceptibility to fake news.     Sex Differences in Mate Preferences Across 45 Countries: A Large-Scale Replication :  Research published in  Psychological Science  seems to support the popular perception that men are more likely to prefer attractive young mates, and women are more likely to prefer older mates with financial prospects. These sex differences were universal across the 45 countries surveyed. In countries where gender equality was higher, both sexes appeared to have mates closer to their own age. Contrary to older studies, this study found that gender equality did not predict other differences in mate preferences, such as financial prospects. Also, different countries’ rates of communicable and infectious diseases did not predict sex differences or preferences. 

What Is the Test-Retest Reliability of Common Task-Functional MRI Measures? New Empirical Evidence and a Meta-Analysis : The reliability of measuring brain activity using task functional MRI (fMRI) for predicting disease risk and outcomes appears to be low. In  Psychological Science , researchers present a meta-analysis of prior research and an analysis of test-retest reliability of brain activity in certain regions across 11 common fMRI tasks. The authors found that reliability across studies was low, and test-retest studies did not reliably show activity in the same areas of interest for the same tasks. These findings suggest that current task-fMRI measures are not suitable for predicting clinical outcomes or studying individual differences.    Racial Inequality in Psychological Research: Trends of the Past and Recommendations for the Future :  Systematic inequality exists within psychological research.  This is the conclusion researchers published in  Perspectives on Psychological Science  after querying more than 26,000 articles published between 1974 and 2018 in top-tier psychology journals. Most publications are edited by White editors, and the few publications that highlight race were written by White authors and had few participants of color. These findings suggest the need to diversify editing, writing, and participation in psychological science. To this end, the researchers provide a set of actionable recommendations for journals and authors.  

Your Brain Is Not an Onion With a Tiny Reptile Inside : A paper in  Current Directions in Psychological Science  describes a model of neural evolution that challenges the widespread misconception that as vertebrate animals evolved, they added “newer” brain structures to the “older” existing ones, enabling them to have more complex psychological functions (e.g., language). Neurobiologists have long discredited this misconception that the reptile brain is still part of the human brain, which just added more layers. The authors provide examples of how this inaccurate view of brain evolution has impeded progress in psychology. 

The Emotional Path to Action: Empathy Promotes Physical Distancing and Wearing of Face Masks During the COVID-19 Pandemic : Empathy for people most vulnerable to COVID-19 appears to motivate wearing face masks and practicing social distancing, according to an article published in  Psychological Science . Participants who showed more empathy for the most vulnerable to the virus were more likely to report social-distancing practices. In two experiments, inducing empathy resulted in higher motivation to wear face masks and to practice social distancing than simply informing participants about the importance of these practices, in particular for those most vulnerable to the virus.  

Fighting COVID-19 Misinformation on Social Media: Experimental Evidence for a Scalable Accuracy-Nudge Intervention :  Nudging people to think about the accuracy of news headlines might be a simple way to improve their choices about what to share on social media. When directly asked about the accuracy of COVID-19-related news, participants in a study published in  Psychological Science  were better at discriminating between true and false than when asked simply to decide whether to share it. Similarly, having participants judge the accuracy of non-COVID-19-related headlines increased their discernment about the accuracy of COVID-19-related articles and the quality of their subsequent intentions to share them.  

How Firm Are the Foundations of Mind-Set Theory? The Claims Appear Stronger Than the Evidence : Mind-set theory proposes that the beliefs one has about whether attributes are malleable ( growth mind-set ) or unchangeable ( fixed mind-set ) influence one’s motivation, type of goals, persistence, and resilience. Contrary to what the mind-set theory would predict, researchers publishing in  Psychological Science  tested 438 students and found weak associations (<.20) between mind-set, goal orientation, response to challenge, belief in effort, cognitive ability, and intelligence. The researchers suggest that these results may indicate that some claims about mind-set might be overstated. 

The Future of Women in Psychological Science :  A team of researchers analyzed 10 topics relevant for women’s professional prospects in psychological science: career advancement; financial compensation; service assignment and practices; lifestyle roles and work–family conflict; gender biases; prevalence and perceptions of positions of power; intersectionality; harassment and incivility; agency, self-esteem, and self-promotion; and lack of belonging. In  Perspectives on Psychological Science , the authors discuss empirical evidence for each of these issues and clarify gender gaps and positive change in the hope that a better understanding of these issues will spark conversation and help to mitigate remaining gender differences in the field. 

Can Bad Be Good? The Attraction of a Darker Self : We prefer fictional villains who are similar to us, according to research in  Psychological Science . Researchers explored data from an online platform that allows users to become “fans” of characters and take a quiz to evaluate their similarity with them. Individuals preferred villains who were similar to themselves. A series of laboratory studies also found an association between similarity of negative traits, when the villain was fictional but not when the villain was a real person, and attraction to the villain. 

Stories in Action

Stories may complement established policy tools. Walsh and colleagues define the elements of storytelling and discuss stories’ key features and functions, providing design principles for policymakers interested in building stories. 

SAGE 10-Year Impact Awards Honor Two APS Articles

Two 2011 APS journal articles exploring the rise of Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk) and the risk of accepting false-positive findings have received SAGE Publishing’s third annual 10-Year Impact Awards.

Letter from the Editor: A New Chapter for the Observer

After nearly 40 years in print, the APS member magazine is going all-digital.

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The Use of Research Methods in Psychological Research: A Systematised Review

Salomé elizabeth scholtz.

1 Community Psychosocial Research (COMPRES), School of Psychosocial Health, North-West University, Potchefstroom, South Africa

Werner de Klerk

Leon t. de beer.

2 WorkWell Research Institute, North-West University, Potchefstroom, South Africa

Research methods play an imperative role in research quality as well as educating young researchers, however, the application thereof is unclear which can be detrimental to the field of psychology. Therefore, this systematised review aimed to determine what research methods are being used, how these methods are being used and for what topics in the field. Our review of 999 articles from five journals over a period of 5 years indicated that psychology research is conducted in 10 topics via predominantly quantitative research methods. Of these 10 topics, social psychology was the most popular. The remainder of the conducted methodology is described. It was also found that articles lacked rigour and transparency in the used methodology which has implications for replicability. In conclusion this article, provides an overview of all reported methodologies used in a sample of psychology journals. It highlights the popularity and application of methods and designs throughout the article sample as well as an unexpected lack of rigour with regard to most aspects of methodology. Possible sample bias should be considered when interpreting the results of this study. It is recommended that future research should utilise the results of this study to determine the possible impact on the field of psychology as a science and to further investigation into the use of research methods. Results should prompt the following future research into: a lack or rigour and its implication on replication, the use of certain methods above others, publication bias and choice of sampling method.

Introduction

Psychology is an ever-growing and popular field (Gough and Lyons, 2016 ; Clay, 2017 ). Due to this growth and the need for science-based research to base health decisions on (Perestelo-Pérez, 2013 ), the use of research methods in the broad field of psychology is an essential point of investigation (Stangor, 2011 ; Aanstoos, 2014 ). Research methods are therefore viewed as important tools used by researchers to collect data (Nieuwenhuis, 2016 ) and include the following: quantitative, qualitative, mixed method and multi method (Maree, 2016 ). Additionally, researchers also employ various types of literature reviews to address research questions (Grant and Booth, 2009 ). According to literature, what research method is used and why a certain research method is used is complex as it depends on various factors that may include paradigm (O'Neil and Koekemoer, 2016 ), research question (Grix, 2002 ), or the skill and exposure of the researcher (Nind et al., 2015 ). How these research methods are employed is also difficult to discern as research methods are often depicted as having fixed boundaries that are continuously crossed in research (Johnson et al., 2001 ; Sandelowski, 2011 ). Examples of this crossing include adding quantitative aspects to qualitative studies (Sandelowski et al., 2009 ), or stating that a study used a mixed-method design without the study having any characteristics of this design (Truscott et al., 2010 ).

The inappropriate use of research methods affects how students and researchers improve and utilise their research skills (Scott Jones and Goldring, 2015 ), how theories are developed (Ngulube, 2013 ), and the credibility of research results (Levitt et al., 2017 ). This, in turn, can be detrimental to the field (Nind et al., 2015 ), journal publication (Ketchen et al., 2008 ; Ezeh et al., 2010 ), and attempts to address public social issues through psychological research (Dweck, 2017 ). This is especially important given the now well-known replication crisis the field is facing (Earp and Trafimow, 2015 ; Hengartner, 2018 ).

Due to this lack of clarity on method use and the potential impact of inept use of research methods, the aim of this study was to explore the use of research methods in the field of psychology through a review of journal publications. Chaichanasakul et al. ( 2011 ) identify reviewing articles as the opportunity to examine the development, growth and progress of a research area and overall quality of a journal. Studies such as Lee et al. ( 1999 ) as well as Bluhm et al. ( 2011 ) review of qualitative methods has attempted to synthesis the use of research methods and indicated the growth of qualitative research in American and European journals. Research has also focused on the use of research methods in specific sub-disciplines of psychology, for example, in the field of Industrial and Organisational psychology Coetzee and Van Zyl ( 2014 ) found that South African publications tend to consist of cross-sectional quantitative research methods with underrepresented longitudinal studies. Qualitative studies were found to make up 21% of the articles published from 1995 to 2015 in a similar study by O'Neil and Koekemoer ( 2016 ). Other methods in health psychology, such as Mixed methods research have also been reportedly growing in popularity (O'Cathain, 2009 ).

A broad overview of the use of research methods in the field of psychology as a whole is however, not available in the literature. Therefore, our research focused on answering what research methods are being used, how these methods are being used and for what topics in practice (i.e., journal publications) in order to provide a general perspective of method used in psychology publication. We synthesised the collected data into the following format: research topic [areas of scientific discourse in a field or the current needs of a population (Bittermann and Fischer, 2018 )], method [data-gathering tools (Nieuwenhuis, 2016 )], sampling [elements chosen from a population to partake in research (Ritchie et al., 2009 )], data collection [techniques and research strategy (Maree, 2016 )], and data analysis [discovering information by examining bodies of data (Ktepi, 2016 )]. A systematised review of recent articles (2013 to 2017) collected from five different journals in the field of psychological research was conducted.

Grant and Booth ( 2009 ) describe systematised reviews as the review of choice for post-graduate studies, which is employed using some elements of a systematic review and seldom more than one or two databases to catalogue studies after a comprehensive literature search. The aspects used in this systematised review that are similar to that of a systematic review were a full search within the chosen database and data produced in tabular form (Grant and Booth, 2009 ).

Sample sizes and timelines vary in systematised reviews (see Lowe and Moore, 2014 ; Pericall and Taylor, 2014 ; Barr-Walker, 2017 ). With no clear parameters identified in the literature (see Grant and Booth, 2009 ), the sample size of this study was determined by the purpose of the sample (Strydom, 2011 ), and time and cost constraints (Maree and Pietersen, 2016 ). Thus, a non-probability purposive sample (Ritchie et al., 2009 ) of the top five psychology journals from 2013 to 2017 was included in this research study. Per Lee ( 2015 ) American Psychological Association (APA) recommends the use of the most up-to-date sources for data collection with consideration of the context of the research study. As this research study focused on the most recent trends in research methods used in the broad field of psychology, the identified time frame was deemed appropriate.

Psychology journals were only included if they formed part of the top five English journals in the miscellaneous psychology domain of the Scimago Journal and Country Rank (Scimago Journal & Country Rank, 2017 ). The Scimago Journal and Country Rank provides a yearly updated list of publicly accessible journal and country-specific indicators derived from the Scopus® database (Scopus, 2017b ) by means of the Scimago Journal Rank (SJR) indicator developed by Scimago from the algorithm Google PageRank™ (Scimago Journal & Country Rank, 2017 ). Scopus is the largest global database of abstracts and citations from peer-reviewed journals (Scopus, 2017a ). Reasons for the development of the Scimago Journal and Country Rank list was to allow researchers to assess scientific domains, compare country rankings, and compare and analyse journals (Scimago Journal & Country Rank, 2017 ), which supported the aim of this research study. Additionally, the goals of the journals had to focus on topics in psychology in general with no preference to specific research methods and have full-text access to articles.

The following list of top five journals in 2018 fell within the abovementioned inclusion criteria (1) Australian Journal of Psychology, (2) British Journal of Psychology, (3) Europe's Journal of Psychology, (4) International Journal of Psychology and lastly the (5) Journal of Psychology Applied and Interdisciplinary.

Journals were excluded from this systematised review if no full-text versions of their articles were available, if journals explicitly stated a publication preference for certain research methods, or if the journal only published articles in a specific discipline of psychological research (for example, industrial psychology, clinical psychology etc.).

The researchers followed a procedure (see Figure 1 ) adapted from that of Ferreira et al. ( 2016 ) for systematised reviews. Data collection and categorisation commenced on 4 December 2017 and continued until 30 June 2019. All the data was systematically collected and coded manually (Grant and Booth, 2009 ) with an independent person acting as co-coder. Codes of interest included the research topic, method used, the design used, sampling method, and methodology (the method used for data collection and data analysis). These codes were derived from the wording in each article. Themes were created based on the derived codes and checked by the co-coder. Lastly, these themes were catalogued into a table as per the systematised review design.

Systematised review procedure.

According to Johnston et al. ( 2019 ), “literature screening, selection, and data extraction/analyses” (p. 7) are specifically tailored to the aim of a review. Therefore, the steps followed in a systematic review must be reported in a comprehensive and transparent manner. The chosen systematised design adhered to the rigour expected from systematic reviews with regard to full search and data produced in tabular form (Grant and Booth, 2009 ). The rigorous application of the systematic review is, therefore discussed in relation to these two elements.

Firstly, to ensure a comprehensive search, this research study promoted review transparency by following a clear protocol outlined according to each review stage before collecting data (Johnston et al., 2019 ). This protocol was similar to that of Ferreira et al. ( 2016 ) and approved by three research committees/stakeholders and the researchers (Johnston et al., 2019 ). The eligibility criteria for article inclusion was based on the research question and clearly stated, and the process of inclusion was recorded on an electronic spreadsheet to create an evidence trail (Bandara et al., 2015 ; Johnston et al., 2019 ). Microsoft Excel spreadsheets are a popular tool for review studies and can increase the rigour of the review process (Bandara et al., 2015 ). Screening for appropriate articles for inclusion forms an integral part of a systematic review process (Johnston et al., 2019 ). This step was applied to two aspects of this research study: the choice of eligible journals and articles to be included. Suitable journals were selected by the first author and reviewed by the second and third authors. Initially, all articles from the chosen journals were included. Then, by process of elimination, those irrelevant to the research aim, i.e., interview articles or discussions etc., were excluded.

To ensure rigourous data extraction, data was first extracted by one reviewer, and an independent person verified the results for completeness and accuracy (Johnston et al., 2019 ). The research question served as a guide for efficient, organised data extraction (Johnston et al., 2019 ). Data was categorised according to the codes of interest, along with article identifiers for audit trails such as authors, title and aims of articles. The categorised data was based on the aim of the review (Johnston et al., 2019 ) and synthesised in tabular form under methods used, how these methods were used, and for what topics in the field of psychology.

The initial search produced a total of 1,145 articles from the 5 journals identified. Inclusion and exclusion criteria resulted in a final sample of 999 articles ( Figure 2 ). Articles were co-coded into 84 codes, from which 10 themes were derived ( Table 1 ).

Journal article frequency.

Codes used to form themes (research topics).

These 10 themes represent the topic section of our research question ( Figure 3 ). All these topics except, for the final one, psychological practice , were found to concur with the research areas in psychology as identified by Weiten ( 2010 ). These research areas were chosen to represent the derived codes as they provided broad definitions that allowed for clear, concise categorisation of the vast amount of data. Article codes were categorised under particular themes/topics if they adhered to the research area definitions created by Weiten ( 2010 ). It is important to note that these areas of research do not refer to specific disciplines in psychology, such as industrial psychology; but to broader fields that may encompass sub-interests of these disciplines.

Topic frequency (international sample).

In the case of developmental psychology , researchers conduct research into human development from childhood to old age. Social psychology includes research on behaviour governed by social drivers. Researchers in the field of educational psychology study how people learn and the best way to teach them. Health psychology aims to determine the effect of psychological factors on physiological health. Physiological psychology , on the other hand, looks at the influence of physiological aspects on behaviour. Experimental psychology is not the only theme that uses experimental research and focuses on the traditional core topics of psychology (for example, sensation). Cognitive psychology studies the higher mental processes. Psychometrics is concerned with measuring capacity or behaviour. Personality research aims to assess and describe consistency in human behaviour (Weiten, 2010 ). The final theme of psychological practice refers to the experiences, techniques, and interventions employed by practitioners, researchers, and academia in the field of psychology.

Articles under these themes were further subdivided into methodologies: method, sampling, design, data collection, and data analysis. The categorisation was based on information stated in the articles and not inferred by the researchers. Data were compiled into two sets of results presented in this article. The first set addresses the aim of this study from the perspective of the topics identified. The second set of results represents a broad overview of the results from the perspective of the methodology employed. The second set of results are discussed in this article, while the first set is presented in table format. The discussion thus provides a broad overview of methods use in psychology (across all themes), while the table format provides readers with in-depth insight into methods used in the individual themes identified. We believe that presenting the data from both perspectives allow readers a broad understanding of the results. Due a large amount of information that made up our results, we followed Cichocka and Jost ( 2014 ) in simplifying our results. Please note that the numbers indicated in the table in terms of methodology differ from the total number of articles. Some articles employed more than one method/sampling technique/design/data collection method/data analysis in their studies.

What follows is the results for what methods are used, how these methods are used, and which topics in psychology they are applied to . Percentages are reported to the second decimal in order to highlight small differences in the occurrence of methodology.

Firstly, with regard to the research methods used, our results show that researchers are more likely to use quantitative research methods (90.22%) compared to all other research methods. Qualitative research was the second most common research method but only made up about 4.79% of the general method usage. Reviews occurred almost as much as qualitative studies (3.91%), as the third most popular method. Mixed-methods research studies (0.98%) occurred across most themes, whereas multi-method research was indicated in only one study and amounted to 0.10% of the methods identified. The specific use of each method in the topics identified is shown in Table 2 and Figure 4 .

Research methods in psychology.

Research method frequency in topics.

Secondly, in the case of how these research methods are employed , our study indicated the following.

Sampling −78.34% of the studies in the collected articles did not specify a sampling method. From the remainder of the studies, 13 types of sampling methods were identified. These sampling methods included broad categorisation of a sample as, for example, a probability or non-probability sample. General samples of convenience were the methods most likely to be applied (10.34%), followed by random sampling (3.51%), snowball sampling (2.73%), and purposive (1.37%) and cluster sampling (1.27%). The remainder of the sampling methods occurred to a more limited extent (0–1.0%). See Table 3 and Figure 5 for sampling methods employed in each topic.

Sampling use in the field of psychology.

Sampling method frequency in topics.

Designs were categorised based on the articles' statement thereof. Therefore, it is important to note that, in the case of quantitative studies, non-experimental designs (25.55%) were often indicated due to a lack of experiments and any other indication of design, which, according to Laher ( 2016 ), is a reasonable categorisation. Non-experimental designs should thus be compared with experimental designs only in the description of data, as it could include the use of correlational/cross-sectional designs, which were not overtly stated by the authors. For the remainder of the research methods, “not stated” (7.12%) was assigned to articles without design types indicated.

From the 36 identified designs the most popular designs were cross-sectional (23.17%) and experimental (25.64%), which concurred with the high number of quantitative studies. Longitudinal studies (3.80%), the third most popular design, was used in both quantitative and qualitative studies. Qualitative designs consisted of ethnography (0.38%), interpretative phenomenological designs/phenomenology (0.28%), as well as narrative designs (0.28%). Studies that employed the review method were mostly categorised as “not stated,” with the most often stated review designs being systematic reviews (0.57%). The few mixed method studies employed exploratory, explanatory (0.09%), and concurrent designs (0.19%), with some studies referring to separate designs for the qualitative and quantitative methods. The one study that identified itself as a multi-method study used a longitudinal design. Please see how these designs were employed in each specific topic in Table 4 , Figure 6 .

Design use in the field of psychology.

Design frequency in topics.

Data collection and analysis —data collection included 30 methods, with the data collection method most often employed being questionnaires (57.84%). The experimental task (16.56%) was the second most preferred collection method, which included established or unique tasks designed by the researchers. Cognitive ability tests (6.84%) were also regularly used along with various forms of interviewing (7.66%). Table 5 and Figure 7 represent data collection use in the various topics. Data analysis consisted of 3,857 occurrences of data analysis categorised into ±188 various data analysis techniques shown in Table 6 and Figures 1 – 7 . Descriptive statistics were the most commonly used (23.49%) along with correlational analysis (17.19%). When using a qualitative method, researchers generally employed thematic analysis (0.52%) or different forms of analysis that led to coding and the creation of themes. Review studies presented few data analysis methods, with most studies categorising their results. Mixed method and multi-method studies followed the analysis methods identified for the qualitative and quantitative studies included.

Data collection in the field of psychology.

Data collection frequency in topics.

Data analysis in the field of psychology.

Results of the topics researched in psychology can be seen in the tables, as previously stated in this article. It is noteworthy that, of the 10 topics, social psychology accounted for 43.54% of the studies, with cognitive psychology the second most popular research topic at 16.92%. The remainder of the topics only occurred in 4.0–7.0% of the articles considered. A list of the included 999 articles is available under the section “View Articles” on the following website: https://methodgarden.xtrapolate.io/ . This website was created by Scholtz et al. ( 2019 ) to visually present a research framework based on this Article's results.

This systematised review categorised full-length articles from five international journals across the span of 5 years to provide insight into the use of research methods in the field of psychology. Results indicated what methods are used how these methods are being used and for what topics (why) in the included sample of articles. The results should be seen as providing insight into method use and by no means a comprehensive representation of the aforementioned aim due to the limited sample. To our knowledge, this is the first research study to address this topic in this manner. Our discussion attempts to promote a productive way forward in terms of the key results for method use in psychology, especially in the field of academia (Holloway, 2008 ).

With regard to the methods used, our data stayed true to literature, finding only common research methods (Grant and Booth, 2009 ; Maree, 2016 ) that varied in the degree to which they were employed. Quantitative research was found to be the most popular method, as indicated by literature (Breen and Darlaston-Jones, 2010 ; Counsell and Harlow, 2017 ) and previous studies in specific areas of psychology (see Coetzee and Van Zyl, 2014 ). Its long history as the first research method (Leech et al., 2007 ) in the field of psychology as well as researchers' current application of mathematical approaches in their studies (Toomela, 2010 ) might contribute to its popularity today. Whatever the case may be, our results show that, despite the growth in qualitative research (Demuth, 2015 ; Smith and McGannon, 2018 ), quantitative research remains the first choice for article publication in these journals. Despite the included journals indicating openness to articles that apply any research methods. This finding may be due to qualitative research still being seen as a new method (Burman and Whelan, 2011 ) or reviewers' standards being higher for qualitative studies (Bluhm et al., 2011 ). Future research is encouraged into the possible biasness in publication of research methods, additionally further investigation with a different sample into the proclaimed growth of qualitative research may also provide different results.

Review studies were found to surpass that of multi-method and mixed method studies. To this effect Grant and Booth ( 2009 ), state that the increased awareness, journal contribution calls as well as its efficiency in procuring research funds all promote the popularity of reviews. The low frequency of mixed method studies contradicts the view in literature that it's the third most utilised research method (Tashakkori and Teddlie's, 2003 ). Its' low occurrence in this sample could be due to opposing views on mixing methods (Gunasekare, 2015 ) or that authors prefer publishing in mixed method journals, when using this method, or its relative novelty (Ivankova et al., 2016 ). Despite its low occurrence, the application of the mixed methods design in articles was methodologically clear in all cases which were not the case for the remainder of research methods.

Additionally, a substantial number of studies used a combination of methodologies that are not mixed or multi-method studies. Perceived fixed boundaries are according to literature often set aside, as confirmed by this result, in order to investigate the aim of a study, which could create a new and helpful way of understanding the world (Gunasekare, 2015 ). According to Toomela ( 2010 ), this is not unheard of and could be considered a form of “structural systemic science,” as in the case of qualitative methodology (observation) applied in quantitative studies (experimental design) for example. Based on this result, further research into this phenomenon as well as its implications for research methods such as multi and mixed methods is recommended.

Discerning how these research methods were applied, presented some difficulty. In the case of sampling, most studies—regardless of method—did mention some form of inclusion and exclusion criteria, but no definite sampling method. This result, along with the fact that samples often consisted of students from the researchers' own academic institutions, can contribute to literature and debates among academics (Peterson and Merunka, 2014 ; Laher, 2016 ). Samples of convenience and students as participants especially raise questions about the generalisability and applicability of results (Peterson and Merunka, 2014 ). This is because attention to sampling is important as inappropriate sampling can debilitate the legitimacy of interpretations (Onwuegbuzie and Collins, 2017 ). Future investigation into the possible implications of this reported popular use of convenience samples for the field of psychology as well as the reason for this use could provide interesting insight, and is encouraged by this study.

Additionally, and this is indicated in Table 6 , articles seldom report the research designs used, which highlights the pressing aspect of the lack of rigour in the included sample. Rigour with regards to the applied empirical method is imperative in promoting psychology as a science (American Psychological Association, 2020 ). Omitting parts of the research process in publication when it could have been used to inform others' research skills should be questioned, and the influence on the process of replicating results should be considered. Publications are often rejected due to a lack of rigour in the applied method and designs (Fonseca, 2013 ; Laher, 2016 ), calling for increased clarity and knowledge of method application. Replication is a critical part of any field of scientific research and requires the “complete articulation” of the study methods used (Drotar, 2010 , p. 804). The lack of thorough description could be explained by the requirements of certain journals to only report on certain aspects of a research process, especially with regard to the applied design (Laher, 20). However, naming aspects such as sampling and designs, is a requirement according to the APA's Journal Article Reporting Standards (JARS-Quant) (Appelbaum et al., 2018 ). With very little information on how a study was conducted, authors lose a valuable opportunity to enhance research validity, enrich the knowledge of others, and contribute to the growth of psychology and methodology as a whole. In the case of this research study, it also restricted our results to only reported samples and designs, which indicated a preference for certain designs, such as cross-sectional designs for quantitative studies.

Data collection and analysis were for the most part clearly stated. A key result was the versatile use of questionnaires. Researchers would apply a questionnaire in various ways, for example in questionnaire interviews, online surveys, and written questionnaires across most research methods. This may highlight a trend for future research.

With regard to the topics these methods were employed for, our research study found a new field named “psychological practice.” This result may show the growing consciousness of researchers as part of the research process (Denzin and Lincoln, 2003 ), psychological practice, and knowledge generation. The most popular of these topics was social psychology, which is generously covered in journals and by learning societies, as testaments of the institutional support and richness social psychology has in the field of psychology (Chryssochoou, 2015 ). The APA's perspective on 2018 trends in psychology also identifies an increased amount of psychology focus on how social determinants are influencing people's health (Deangelis, 2017 ).

This study was not without limitations and the following should be taken into account. Firstly, this study used a sample of five specific journals to address the aim of the research study, despite general journal aims (as stated on journal websites), this inclusion signified a bias towards the research methods published in these specific journals only and limited generalisability. A broader sample of journals over a different period of time, or a single journal over a longer period of time might provide different results. A second limitation is the use of Excel spreadsheets and an electronic system to log articles, which was a manual process and therefore left room for error (Bandara et al., 2015 ). To address this potential issue, co-coding was performed to reduce error. Lastly, this article categorised data based on the information presented in the article sample; there was no interpretation of what methodology could have been applied or whether the methods stated adhered to the criteria for the methods used. Thus, a large number of articles that did not clearly indicate a research method or design could influence the results of this review. However, this in itself was also a noteworthy result. Future research could review research methods of a broader sample of journals with an interpretive review tool that increases rigour. Additionally, the authors also encourage the future use of systematised review designs as a way to promote a concise procedure in applying this design.

Our research study presented the use of research methods for published articles in the field of psychology as well as recommendations for future research based on these results. Insight into the complex questions identified in literature, regarding what methods are used how these methods are being used and for what topics (why) was gained. This sample preferred quantitative methods, used convenience sampling and presented a lack of rigorous accounts for the remaining methodologies. All methodologies that were clearly indicated in the sample were tabulated to allow researchers insight into the general use of methods and not only the most frequently used methods. The lack of rigorous account of research methods in articles was represented in-depth for each step in the research process and can be of vital importance to address the current replication crisis within the field of psychology. Recommendations for future research aimed to motivate research into the practical implications of the results for psychology, for example, publication bias and the use of convenience samples.

Ethics Statement

This study was cleared by the North-West University Health Research Ethics Committee: NWU-00115-17-S1.

Author Contributions

All authors listed have made a substantial, direct and intellectual contribution to the work, and approved it for publication.

Conflict of Interest

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

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15 Famous Experiments and Case Studies in Psychology

Chris Drew (PhD)

Dr. Chris Drew is the founder of the Helpful Professor. He holds a PhD in education and has published over 20 articles in scholarly journals. He is the former editor of the Journal of Learning Development in Higher Education. [Image Descriptor: Photo of Chris]

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Psychology has seen thousands upon thousands of research studies over the years. Most of these studies have helped shape our current understanding of human thoughts, behavior, and feelings.

The psychology case studies in this list are considered classic examples of psychological case studies and experiments, which are still being taught in introductory psychology courses up to this day.

Some studies, however, were downright shocking and controversial that you’d probably wonder why such studies were conducted back in the day. Imagine participating in an experiment for a small reward or extra class credit, only to be left scarred for life. These kinds of studies, however, paved the way for a more ethical approach to studying psychology and implementation of research standards such as the use of debriefing in psychology research .

Case Study vs. Experiment

Before we dive into the list of the most famous studies in psychology, let us first review the difference between case studies and experiments.

• It is an in-depth study and analysis of an individual, group, community, or phenomenon. The results of a case study cannot be applied to the whole population, but they can provide insights for further studies.
• It often uses qualitative research methods such as observations, surveys, and interviews.
• It is often conducted in real-life settings rather than in controlled environments.
• An experiment is a type of study done on a sample or group of random participants, the results of which can be generalized to the whole population.
• It often uses quantitative research methods that rely on numbers and statistics.
• It is conducted in controlled environments, wherein some things or situations are manipulated.

See Also: Experimental vs Observational Studies

Famous Experiments in Psychology

1. the marshmallow experiment.

Psychologist Walter Mischel conducted the marshmallow experiment at Stanford University in the 1960s to early 1970s. It was a simple test that aimed to define the connection between delayed gratification and success in life.

The instructions were fairly straightforward: children ages 4-6 were presented a piece of marshmallow on a table and they were told that they would receive a second piece if they could wait for 15 minutes without eating the first marshmallow.

About one-third of the 600 participants succeeded in delaying gratification to receive the second marshmallow. Mischel and his team followed up on these participants in the 1990s, learning that those who had the willpower to wait for a larger reward experienced more success in life in terms of SAT scores and other metrics.

This case study also supported self-control theory , a theory in criminology that holds that people with greater self-control are less likely to end up in trouble with the law!

The classic marshmallow experiment, however, was debunked in a 2018 replication study done by Tyler Watts and colleagues.

This more recent experiment had a larger group of participants (900) and a better representation of the general population when it comes to race and ethnicity. In this study, the researchers found out that the ability to wait for a second marshmallow does not depend on willpower alone but more so on the economic background and social status of the participants.

2. The Bystander Effect

In 1694, Kitty Genovese was murdered in the neighborhood of Kew Gardens, New York. It was told that there were up to 38 witnesses and onlookers in the vicinity of the crime scene, but nobody did anything to stop the murder or call for help.

Such tragedy was the catalyst that inspired social psychologists Bibb Latane and John Darley to formulate the phenomenon called bystander effect or bystander apathy .

Subsequent investigations showed that this story was exaggerated and inaccurate, as there were actually only about a dozen witnesses, at least two of whom called the police. But the case of Kitty Genovese led to various studies that aim to shed light on the bystander phenomenon.

Latane and Darley tested bystander intervention in an experimental study . Participants were asked to answer a questionnaire inside a room, and they would either be alone or with two other participants (who were actually actors or confederates in the study). Smoke would then come out from under the door. The reaction time of participants was tested — how long would it take them to report the smoke to the authorities or the experimenters?

The results showed that participants who were alone in the room reported the smoke faster than participants who were with two passive others. The study suggests that the more onlookers are present in an emergency situation, the less likely someone would step up to help, a social phenomenon now popularly called the bystander effect.

3. Asch Conformity Study

Have you ever made a decision against your better judgment just to fit in with your friends or family? The Asch Conformity Studies will help you understand this kind of situation better.

In this experiment, a group of participants were shown three numbered lines of different lengths and asked to identify the longest of them all. However, only one true participant was present in every group and the rest were actors, most of whom told the wrong answer.

Results showed that the participants went for the wrong answer, even though they knew which line was the longest one in the first place. When the participants were asked why they identified the wrong one, they said that they didn’t want to be branded as strange or peculiar.

This study goes to show that there are situations in life when people prefer fitting in than being right. It also tells that there is power in numbers — a group’s decision can overwhelm a person and make them doubt their judgment.

4. The Bobo Doll Experiment

The Bobo Doll Experiment was conducted by Dr. Albert Bandura, the proponent of social learning theory .

Back in the 1960s, the Nature vs. Nurture debate was a popular topic among psychologists. Bandura contributed to this discussion by proposing that human behavior is mostly influenced by environmental rather than genetic factors.

In the Bobo Doll Experiment, children were divided into three groups: one group was shown a video in which an adult acted aggressively toward the Bobo Doll, the second group was shown a video in which an adult play with the Bobo Doll, and the third group served as the control group where no video was shown.

The children were then led to a room with different kinds of toys, including the Bobo Doll they’ve seen in the video. Results showed that children tend to imitate the adults in the video. Those who were presented the aggressive model acted aggressively toward the Bobo Doll while those who were presented the passive model showed less aggression.

While the Bobo Doll Experiment can no longer be replicated because of ethical concerns, it has laid out the foundations of social learning theory and helped us understand the degree of influence adult behavior has on children.

5. Blue Eye / Brown Eye Experiment

Following the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968, third-grade teacher Jane Elliott conducted an experiment in her class. Although not a formal experiment in controlled settings, A Class Divided is a good example of a social experiment to help children understand the concept of racism and discrimination.

The class was divided into two groups: blue-eyed children and brown-eyed children. For one day, Elliott gave preferential treatment to her blue-eyed students, giving them more attention and pampering them with rewards. The next day, it was the brown-eyed students’ turn to receive extra favors and privileges.

As a result, whichever group of students was given preferential treatment performed exceptionally well in class, had higher quiz scores, and recited more frequently; students who were discriminated against felt humiliated, answered poorly in tests, and became uncertain with their answers in class.

This study is now widely taught in sociocultural psychology classes.

6. Stanford Prison Experiment

One of the most controversial and widely-cited studies in psychology is the Stanford Prison Experiment , conducted by Philip Zimbardo at the basement of the Stanford psychology building in 1971. The hypothesis was that abusive behavior in prisons is influenced by the personality traits of the prisoners and prison guards.

The participants in the experiment were college students who were randomly assigned as either a prisoner or a prison guard. The prison guards were then told to run the simulated prison for two weeks. However, the experiment had to be stopped in just 6 days.

The prison guards abused their authority and harassed the prisoners through verbal and physical means. The prisoners, on the other hand, showed submissive behavior. Zimbardo decided to stop the experiment because the prisoners were showing signs of emotional and physical breakdown.

Although the experiment wasn’t completed, the results strongly showed that people can easily get into a social role when others expect them to, especially when it’s highly stereotyped .

7. The Halo Effect

Have you ever wondered why toothpastes and other dental products are endorsed in advertisements by celebrities more often than dentists? The Halo Effect is one of the reasons!

The Halo Effect shows how one favorable attribute of a person can gain them positive perceptions in other attributes. In the case of product advertisements, attractive celebrities are also perceived as intelligent and knowledgeable of a certain subject matter even though they’re not technically experts.

The Halo Effect originated in a classic study done by Edward Thorndike in the early 1900s. He asked military commanding officers to rate their subordinates based on different qualities, such as physical appearance, leadership, dependability, and intelligence.

The results showed that high ratings of a particular quality influences the ratings of other qualities, producing a halo effect of overall high ratings. The opposite also applied, which means that a negative rating in one quality also correlated to negative ratings in other qualities.

Experiments on the Halo Effect came in various formats as well, supporting Thorndike’s original theory. This phenomenon suggests that our perception of other people’s overall personality is hugely influenced by a quality that we focus on.

8. Cognitive Dissonance

There are experiences in our lives when our beliefs and behaviors do not align with each other and we try to justify them in our minds. This is cognitive dissonance , which was studied in an experiment by Leon Festinger and James Carlsmith back in 1959.

In this experiment, participants had to go through a series of boring and repetitive tasks, such as spending an hour turning pegs in a wooden knob. After completing the tasks, they were then paid either $1 or $20 to tell the next participants that the tasks were extremely fun and enjoyable. Afterwards, participants were asked to rate the experiment. Those who were given $1 rated the experiment as more interesting and fun than those who received $20.

The results showed that those who received a smaller incentive to lie experienced cognitive dissonance — $1 wasn’t enough incentive for that one hour of painstakingly boring activity, so the participants had to justify that they had fun anyway.

Famous Case Studies in Psychology

9. little albert.

In 1920, behaviourist theorists John Watson and Rosalie Rayner experimented on a 9-month-old baby to test the effects of classical conditioning in instilling fear in humans.

This was such a controversial study that it gained popularity in psychology textbooks and syllabi because it is a classic example of unethical research studies done in the name of science.

In one of the experiments, Little Albert was presented with a harmless stimulus or object, a white rat, which he wasn’t scared of at first. But every time Little Albert would see the white rat, the researchers would play a scary sound of hammer and steel. After about 6 pairings, Little Albert learned to fear the rat even without the scary sound.

Little Albert developed signs of fear to different objects presented to him through classical conditioning . He even generalized his fear to other stimuli not present in the course of the experiment.

10. Phineas Gage

Phineas Gage is such a celebrity in Psych 101 classes, even though the way he rose to popularity began with a tragic accident. He was a resident of Central Vermont and worked in the construction of a new railway line in the mid-1800s. One day, an explosive went off prematurely, sending a tamping iron straight into his face and through his brain.

Gage survived the accident, fortunately, something that is considered a feat even up to this day. He managed to find a job as a stagecoach after the accident. However, his family and friends reported that his personality changed so much that “he was no longer Gage” (Harlow, 1868).

New evidence on the case of Phineas Gage has since come to light, thanks to modern scientific studies and medical tests. However, there are still plenty of mysteries revolving around his brain damage and subsequent recovery.

11. Anna O.

Anna O., a social worker and feminist of German Jewish descent, was one of the first patients to receive psychoanalytic treatment.

Her real name was Bertha Pappenheim and she inspired much of Sigmund Freud’s works and books on psychoanalytic theory, although they hadn’t met in person. Their connection was through Joseph Breuer, Freud’s mentor when he was still starting his clinical practice.

Anna O. suffered from paralysis, personality changes, hallucinations, and rambling speech, but her doctors could not find the cause. Joseph Breuer was then called to her house for intervention and he performed psychoanalysis, also called the “talking cure”, on her.

Breuer would tell Anna O. to say anything that came to her mind, such as her thoughts, feelings, and childhood experiences. It was noted that her symptoms subsided by talking things out.

However, Breuer later referred Anna O. to the Bellevue Sanatorium, where she recovered and set out to be a renowned writer and advocate of women and children.

12. Patient HM

H.M., or Henry Gustav Molaison, was a severe amnesiac who had been the subject of countless psychological and neurological studies.

Henry was 27 when he underwent brain surgery to cure the epilepsy that he had been experiencing since childhood. In an unfortunate turn of events, he lost his memory because of the surgery and his brain also became unable to store long-term memories.

He was then regarded as someone living solely in the present, forgetting an experience as soon as it happened and only remembering bits and pieces of his past. Over the years, his amnesia and the structure of his brain had helped neuropsychologists learn more about cognitive functions .

Suzanne Corkin, a researcher, writer, and good friend of H.M., recently published a book about his life. Entitled Permanent Present Tense , this book is both a memoir and a case study following the struggles and joys of Henry Gustav Molaison.

13. Chris Sizemore

Chris Sizemore gained celebrity status in the psychology community when she was diagnosed with multiple personality disorder, now known as dissociative identity disorder.

Sizemore has several alter egos, which included Eve Black, Eve White, and Jane. Various papers about her stated that these alter egos were formed as a coping mechanism against the traumatic experiences she underwent in her childhood.

Sizemore said that although she has succeeded in unifying her alter egos into one dominant personality, there were periods in the past experienced by only one of her alter egos. For example, her husband married her Eve White alter ego and not her.

Her story inspired her psychiatrists to write a book about her, entitled The Three Faces of Eve , which was then turned into a 1957 movie of the same title.

14. David Reimer

When David was just 8 months old, he lost his penis because of a botched circumcision operation.

Psychologist John Money then advised Reimer’s parents to raise him as a girl instead, naming him Brenda. His gender reassignment was supported by subsequent surgery and hormonal therapy.

Money described Reimer’s gender reassignment as a success, but problems started to arise as Reimer was growing up. His boyishness was not completely subdued by the hormonal therapy. When he was 14 years old, he learned about the secrets of his past and he underwent gender reassignment to become male again.

Reimer became an advocate for children undergoing the same difficult situation he had been. His life story ended when he was 38 as he took his own life.

15. Kim Peek

Kim Peek was the inspiration behind Rain Man , an Oscar-winning movie about an autistic savant character played by Dustin Hoffman.

The movie was released in 1988, a time when autism wasn’t widely known and acknowledged yet. So it was an eye-opener for many people who watched the film.

In reality, Kim Peek was a non-autistic savant. He was exceptionally intelligent despite the brain abnormalities he was born with. He was like a walking encyclopedia, knowledgeable about travel routes, US zip codes, historical facts, and classical music. He also read and memorized approximately 12,000 books in his lifetime.

This list of experiments and case studies in psychology is just the tip of the iceberg! There are still countless interesting psychology studies that you can explore if you want to learn more about human behavior and dynamics.

You can also conduct your own mini-experiment or participate in a study conducted in your school or neighborhood. Just remember that there are ethical standards to follow so as not to repeat the lasting physical and emotional harm done to Little Albert or the Stanford Prison Experiment participants.

Asch, S. E. (1956). Studies of independence and conformity: I. A minority of one against a unanimous majority. Psychological Monographs: General and Applied, 70 (9), 1–70. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0093718

Bandura, A., Ross, D., & Ross, S. A. (1961). Transmission of aggression through imitation of aggressive models. The Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 63 (3), 575–582. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0045925

Elliott, J., Yale University., WGBH (Television station : Boston, Mass.), & PBS DVD (Firm). (2003). A class divided. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Films.

Festinger, L., & Carlsmith, J. M. (1959). Cognitive consequences of forced compliance. The Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 58 (2), 203–210. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0041593

Haney, C., Banks, W. C., & Zimbardo, P. G. (1973). A study of prisoners and guards in a simulated prison. Naval Research Review , 30 , 4-17.

Latane, B., & Darley, J. M. (1968). Group inhibition of bystander intervention in emergencies. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 10 (3), 215–221. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0026570

Mischel, W. (2014). The Marshmallow Test: Mastering self-control. Little, Brown and Co.

Thorndike, E. (1920) A Constant Error in Psychological Ratings. Journal of Applied Psychology , 4 , 25-29. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/h0071663

Watson, J. B., & Rayner, R. (1920). Conditioned emotional reactions. Journal of experimental psychology , 3 (1), 1.

• Chris Drew (PhD) https://helpfulprofessor.com/author/chris-drew-phd-2/ 10 Reasons you’re Perpetually Single
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Collection  06 March 2024

Psychology Top 100 of 2023

This collection highlights the most downloaded* psychology research papers published by Scientific Reports in 2023. Featuring authors from around the world, these papers highlight valuable research from an international community.

You can also view the journal's overall Top 100 or the Top 100 within various subject areas . *Data obtained from SN Insights, which is based on Digital Science’s Dimensions.

Mild internet use is associated with epigenetic alterations of key neurotransmission genes in salivary DNA of young university students

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Association between cannabis use and blood pressure levels according to comorbidities and socioeconomic status

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Effect of breathwork on stress and mental health: A meta-analysis of randomised-controlled trials

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Married women with children experience greater intrasexual competition than their male counterparts

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Treatment of 95 post-Covid patients with SSRIs

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Co-use of MDMA with psilocybin/LSD may buffer against challenging experiences and enhance positive experiences

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Learning and memory deficits produced by aspartame are heritable via the paternal lineage

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Exercising is good for the brain but exercising outside is potentially better

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Modulation of amygdala activity for emotional faces due to botulinum toxin type A injections that prevent frowning

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Nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide metabolism and arterial stiffness after long-term nicotinamide mononucleotide supplementation: a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial

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Cerebral hypoperfusion in post-COVID-19 cognitively impaired subjects revealed by arterial spin labeling MRI

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Circulating microRNA expression signatures accurately discriminate myalgic encephalomyelitis from fibromyalgia and comorbid conditions

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The illusion of the mind–body divide is attenuated in males

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Impacts of spaceflight experience on human brain structure

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Frequency and characteristics of patients with bispectral index values of 60 or higher during the induction and maintenance of general anesthesia with remimazolam

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Giraffes make decisions based on statistical information

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Genetic insights into the causal relationship between physical activity and cognitive functioning

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Nicotine exposure decreases likelihood of SARS-CoV-2 RNA expression and neuropathology in the hACE2 mouse brain but not moribundity

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Mindfulness may be associated with less prosocial engagement among high intelligence individuals

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Ketogenic diet for epilepsy control and enhancement in adaptive behavior

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LPS induces microglial activation and GABAergic synaptic deficits in the hippocampus accompanied by prolonged cognitive impairment

Dynamic effects of bilingualism on brain structure map onto general principles of experience-based neuroplasticity

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Alternative beliefs in psychedelic drug users

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Psychological profiles of anti-vaccination argument endorsement

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Memory compensation strategies in everyday life: similarities and differences between younger and older adults

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Long-lasting effects of World War II trauma on PTSD symptoms and embodiment levels in a national sample of Poles

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Introduction to Research Methods in Psychology

There are several different research methods in psychology , each of which can help researchers learn more about the way people think, feel, and behave. If you're a psychology student or just want to know the types of research in psychology, here are the main ones as well as how they work.

Three Main Types of Research in Psychology

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Psychology research can usually be classified as one of three major types.

1. Causal or Experimental Research

When most people think of scientific experimentation, research on cause and effect is most often brought to mind. Experiments on causal relationships investigate the effect of one or more variables on one or more outcome variables. This type of research also determines if one variable causes another variable to occur or change.

An example of this type of research in psychology would be changing the length of a specific mental health treatment and measuring the effect on study participants.

2. Descriptive Research

Descriptive research seeks to depict what already exists in a group or population. Three types of psychology research utilizing this method are:

• Case studies
• Observational studies

An example of this psychology research method would be an opinion poll to determine which presidential candidate people plan to vote for in the next election. Descriptive studies don't try to measure the effect of a variable; they seek only to describe it.

3. Relational or Correlational Research

A study that investigates the connection between two or more variables is considered relational research. The variables compared are generally already present in the group or population.

For example, a study that looks at the proportion of males and females that would purchase either a classical CD or a jazz CD would be studying the relationship between gender and music preference.

Theory vs. Hypothesis in Psychology Research

People often confuse the terms theory and hypothesis or are not quite sure of the distinctions between the two concepts. If you're a psychology student, it's essential to understand what each term means, how they differ, and how they're used in psychology research.

A theory is a well-established principle that has been developed to explain some aspect of the natural world. A theory arises from repeated observation and testing and incorporates facts, laws, predictions, and tested hypotheses that are widely accepted.

A hypothesis is a specific, testable prediction about what you expect to happen in your study. For example, an experiment designed to look at the relationship between study habits and test anxiety might have a hypothesis that states, "We predict that students with better study habits will suffer less test anxiety." Unless your study is exploratory in nature, your hypothesis should always explain what you expect to happen during the course of your experiment or research.

While the terms are sometimes used interchangeably in everyday use, the difference between a theory and a hypothesis is important when studying experimental design.

Some other important distinctions to note include:

• A theory predicts events in general terms, while a hypothesis makes a specific prediction about a specified set of circumstances.
• A theory has been extensively tested and is generally accepted, while a hypothesis is a speculative guess that has yet to be tested.

The Effect of Time on Research Methods in Psychology

There are two types of time dimensions that can be used in designing a research study:

• Cross-sectional research takes place at a single point in time. All tests, measures, or variables are administered to participants on one occasion. This type of research seeks to gather data on present conditions instead of looking at the effects of a variable over a period of time.
• Longitudinal research is a study that takes place over a period of time. Data is first collected at the beginning of the study, and may then be gathered repeatedly throughout the length of the study. Some longitudinal studies may occur over a short period of time, such as a few days, while others may take place over a period of months, years, or even decades.

The effects of aging are often investigated using longitudinal research.

Causal Relationships Between Psychology Research Variables

What do we mean when we talk about a “relationship” between variables? In psychological research, we're referring to a connection between two or more factors that we can measure or systematically vary.

One of the most important distinctions to make when discussing the relationship between variables is the meaning of causation.

A causal relationship is when one variable causes a change in another variable. These types of relationships are investigated by experimental research to determine if changes in one variable actually result in changes in another variable.

Correlational Relationships Between Psychology Research Variables

A correlation is the measurement of the relationship between two variables. These variables already occur in the group or population and are not controlled by the experimenter.

• A positive correlation is a direct relationship where, as the amount of one variable increases, the amount of a second variable also increases.
• In a negative correlation , as the amount of one variable goes up, the levels of another variable go down.

In both types of correlation, there is no evidence or proof that changes in one variable cause changes in the other variable. A correlation simply indicates that there is a relationship between the two variables.

The most important concept is that correlation does not equal causation. Many popular media sources make the mistake of assuming that simply because two variables are related, a causal relationship exists.

Psychologists use descriptive, correlational, and experimental research designs to understand behavior . In:  Introduction to Psychology . Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Libraries Publishing; 2010.

Caruana EJ, Roman M, Herandez-Sanchez J, Solli P. Longitudinal studies . Journal of Thoracic Disease. 2015;7(11):E537-E540. doi:10.3978/j.issn.2072-1439.2015.10.63

University of Berkeley. Science at multiple levels . Understanding Science 101 . Published 2012.

By Kendra Cherry, MSEd Kendra Cherry, MS, is a psychosocial rehabilitation specialist, psychology educator, and author of the "Everything Psychology Book."

Want to create or adapt books like this? Learn more about how Pressbooks supports open publishing practices.

Descriptive Research and Case Studies

Learning objectives.

• Explain the importance and uses of descriptive research, especially case studies, in studying abnormal behavior

Types of Research Methods

There are many research methods available to psychologists in their efforts to understand, describe, and explain behavior and the cognitive and biological processes that underlie it. Some methods rely on observational techniques. Other approaches involve interactions between the researcher and the individuals who are being studied—ranging from a series of simple questions; to extensive, in-depth interviews; to well-controlled experiments.

The three main categories of psychological research are descriptive, correlational, and experimental research. Research studies that do not test specific relationships between variables are called descriptive, or qualitative, studies . These studies are used to describe general or specific behaviors and attributes that are observed and measured. In the early stages of research, it might be difficult to form a hypothesis, especially when there is not any existing literature in the area. In these situations designing an experiment would be premature, as the question of interest is not yet clearly defined as a hypothesis. Often a researcher will begin with a non-experimental approach, such as a descriptive study, to gather more information about the topic before designing an experiment or correlational study to address a specific hypothesis. Descriptive research is distinct from correlational research , in which psychologists formally test whether a relationship exists between two or more variables. Experimental research goes a step further beyond descriptive and correlational research and randomly assigns people to different conditions, using hypothesis testing to make inferences about how these conditions affect behavior. It aims to determine if one variable directly impacts and causes another. Correlational and experimental research both typically use hypothesis testing, whereas descriptive research does not.

Each of these research methods has unique strengths and weaknesses, and each method may only be appropriate for certain types of research questions. For example, studies that rely primarily on observation produce incredible amounts of information, but the ability to apply this information to the larger population is somewhat limited because of small sample sizes. Survey research, on the other hand, allows researchers to easily collect data from relatively large samples. While surveys allow results to be generalized to the larger population more easily, the information that can be collected on any given survey is somewhat limited and subject to problems associated with any type of self-reported data. Some researchers conduct archival research by using existing records. While existing records can be a fairly inexpensive way to collect data that can provide insight into a number of research questions, researchers using this approach have no control on how or what kind of data was collected.

Correlational research can find a relationship between two variables, but the only way a researcher can claim that the relationship between the variables is cause and effect is to perform an experiment. In experimental research, which will be discussed later, there is a tremendous amount of control over variables of interest. While performing an experiment is a powerful approach, experiments are often conducted in very artificial settings, which calls into question the validity of experimental findings with regard to how they would apply in real-world settings. In addition, many of the questions that psychologists would like to answer cannot be pursued through experimental research because of ethical concerns.

The three main types of descriptive studies are case studies, naturalistic observation, and surveys.

Clinical or Case Studies

Psychologists can use a detailed description of one person or a small group based on careful observation.  Case studies  are intensive studies of individuals and have commonly been seen as a fruitful way to come up with hypotheses and generate theories. Case studies add descriptive richness. Case studies are also useful for formulating concepts, which are an important aspect of theory construction. Through fine-grained knowledge and description, case studies can fully specify the causal mechanisms in a way that may be harder in a large study.

Sigmund Freud   developed  many theories from case studies (Anna O., Little Hans, Wolf Man, Dora, etc.). F or example, he conducted a case study of a man, nicknamed “Rat Man,”  in which he claimed that this patient had been cured by psychoanalysis.  T he nickname derives from the fact that among the patient’s many compulsions, he had an obsession with nightmarish fantasies about rats. 

Today, more commonly, case studies reflect an up-close, in-depth, and detailed examination of an individual’s course of treatment. Case studies typically include a complete history of the subject’s background and response to treatment. From the particular client’s experience in therapy, the therapist’s goal is to provide information that may help other therapists who treat similar clients.

Case studies are generally a single-case design, but can also be a multiple-case design, where replication instead of sampling is the criterion for inclusion. Like other research methodologies within psychology, the case study must produce valid and reliable results in order to be useful for the development of future research. Distinct advantages and disadvantages are associated with the case study in psychology.

A commonly described limit of case studies is that they do not lend themselves to generalizability . The other issue is that the case study is subject to the bias of the researcher in terms of how the case is written, and that cases are chosen because they are consistent with the researcher’s preconceived notions, resulting in biased research. Another common problem in case study research is that of reconciling conflicting interpretations of the same case history.

Despite these limitations, there are advantages to using case studies. One major advantage of the case study in psychology is the potential for the development of novel hypotheses of the  cause of abnormal behavior   for later testing. Second, the case study can provide detailed descriptions of specific and rare cases and help us study unusual conditions that occur too infrequently to study with large sample sizes. The major disadvantage is that case studies cannot be used to determine causation, as is the case in experimental research, where the factors or variables hypothesized to play a causal role are manipulated or controlled by the researcher. 

Link to Learning: Famous Case Studies

Some well-known case studies that related to abnormal psychology include the following:

• Harlow— Phineas Gage
• Breuer & Freud (1895)— Anna O.
• Cleckley’s case studies: on psychopathy ( The Mask of Sanity ) (1941) and multiple personality disorder ( The Three Faces of Eve ) (1957)
• Freud and  Little Hans
• Freud and the  Rat Man
• John Money and the  John/Joan case
• Genie (feral child)
• Piaget’s studies
• Rosenthal’s book on the  murder of Kitty Genovese
• Washoe (sign language)
• Patient H.M.

Naturalistic Observation

If you want to understand how behavior occurs, one of the best ways to gain information is to simply observe the behavior in its natural context. However, people might change their behavior in unexpected ways if they know they are being observed. How do researchers obtain accurate information when people tend to hide their natural behavior? As an example, imagine that your professor asks everyone in your class to raise their hand if they always wash their hands after using the restroom. Chances are that almost everyone in the classroom will raise their hand, but do you think hand washing after every trip to the restroom is really that universal?

This is very similar to the phenomenon mentioned earlier in this module: many individuals do not feel comfortable answering a question honestly. But if we are committed to finding out the facts about handwashing, we have other options available to us.

Suppose we send a researcher to a school playground to observe how aggressive or socially anxious children interact with peers. Will our observer blend into the playground environment by wearing a white lab coat, sitting with a clipboard, and staring at the swings? We want our researcher to be inconspicuous and unobtrusively positioned—perhaps pretending to be a school monitor while secretly recording the relevant information. This type of observational study is called naturalistic observation : observing behavior in its natural setting. To better understand peer exclusion, Suzanne Fanger collaborated with colleagues at the University of Texas to observe the behavior of preschool children on a playground. How did the observers remain inconspicuous over the duration of the study? They equipped a few of the children with wireless microphones (which the children quickly forgot about) and observed while taking notes from a distance. Also, the children in that particular preschool (a “laboratory preschool”) were accustomed to having observers on the playground (Fanger, Frankel, & Hazen, 2012).

It is critical that the observer be as unobtrusive and as inconspicuous as possible: when people know they are being watched, they are less likely to behave naturally. For example, psychologists have spent weeks observing the behavior of homeless people on the streets, in train stations, and bus terminals. They try to ensure that their naturalistic observations are unobtrusive, so as to minimize interference with the behavior they observe. Nevertheless, the presence of the observer may distort the behavior that is observed, and this must be taken into consideration (Figure 1).

The greatest benefit of naturalistic observation is the validity, or accuracy, of information collected unobtrusively in a natural setting. Having individuals behave as they normally would in a given situation means that we have a higher degree of ecological validity, or realism, than we might achieve with other research approaches. Therefore, our ability to generalize the findings of the research to real-world situations is enhanced. If done correctly, we need not worry about people modifying their behavior simply because they are being observed. Sometimes, people may assume that reality programs give us a glimpse into authentic human behavior. However, the principle of inconspicuous observation is violated as reality stars are followed by camera crews and are interviewed on camera for personal confessionals. Given that environment, we must doubt how natural and realistic their behaviors are.

The major downside of naturalistic observation is that they are often difficult to set up and control. Although something as simple as observation may seem like it would be a part of all research methods, participant observation is a distinct methodology that involves the researcher embedding themselves into a group in order to study its dynamics. For example, Festinger, Riecken, and Shacter (1956) were very interested in the psychology of a particular cult. However, this cult was very secretive and wouldn’t grant interviews to outside members. So, in order to study these people, Festinger and his colleagues pretended to be cult members, allowing them access to the behavior and psychology of the cult. Despite this example, it should be noted that the people being observed in a participant observation study usually know that the researcher is there to study them. [1]

Another potential problem in observational research is observer bias . Generally, people who act as observers are closely involved in the research project and may unconsciously skew their observations to fit their research goals or expectations. To protect against this type of bias, researchers should have clear criteria established for the types of behaviors recorded and how those behaviors should be classified. In addition, researchers often compare observations of the same event by multiple observers, in order to test inter-rater reliability : a measure of reliability that assesses the consistency of observations by different observers.

Often, psychologists develop surveys as a means of gathering data. Surveys are lists of questions to be answered by research participants, and can be delivered as paper-and-pencil questionnaires, administered electronically, or conducted verbally (Figure 3). Generally, the survey itself can be completed in a short time, and the ease of administering a survey makes it easy to collect data from a large number of people.

Surveys allow researchers to gather data from larger samples than may be afforded by other research methods . A sample is a subset of individuals selected from a population , which is the overall group of individuals that the researchers are interested in. Researchers study the sample and seek to generalize their findings to the population.

There is both strength and weakness in surveys when compared to case studies. By using surveys, we can collect information from a larger sample of people. A larger sample is better able to reflect the actual diversity of the population, thus allowing better generalizability. Therefore, if our sample is sufficiently large and diverse, we can assume that the data we collect from the survey can be generalized to the larger population with more certainty than the information collected through a case study. However, given the greater number of people involved, we are not able to collect the same depth of information on each person that would be collected in a case study.

Another potential weakness of surveys is something we touched on earlier in this module: people do not always give accurate responses. They may lie, misremember, or answer questions in a way that they think makes them look good. For example, people may report drinking less alcohol than is actually the case.

Any number of research questions can be answered through the use of surveys. One real-world example is the research conducted by Jenkins, Ruppel, Kizer, Yehl, and Griffin (2012) about the backlash against the U.S. Arab-American community following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Jenkins and colleagues wanted to determine to what extent these negative attitudes toward Arab-Americans still existed nearly a decade after the attacks occurred. In one study, 140 research participants filled out a survey with 10 questions, including questions asking directly about the participant’s overt prejudicial attitudes toward people of various ethnicities. The survey also asked indirect questions about how likely the participant would be to interact with a person of a given ethnicity in a variety of settings (such as, “How likely do you think it is that you would introduce yourself to a person of Arab-American descent?”). The results of the research suggested that participants were unwilling to report prejudicial attitudes toward any ethnic group. However, there were significant differences between their pattern of responses to questions about social interaction with Arab-Americans compared to other ethnic groups: they indicated less willingness for social interaction with Arab-Americans compared to the other ethnic groups. This suggested that the participants harbored subtle forms of prejudice against Arab-Americans, despite their assertions that this was not the case (Jenkins et al., 2012).

Think it Over

Research has shown that parental depressive symptoms are linked to a number of negative child outcomes. A classmate of yours is interested in  the associations between parental depressive symptoms and actual child behaviors in everyday life [2] because this associations remains largely unknown. After reading this section, what do you think is the best way to better understand such associations? Which method might result in the most valid data?

clinical or case study:  observational research study focusing on one or a few people

correlational research:  tests whether a relationship exists between two or more variables

descriptive research:  research studies that do not test specific relationships between variables; they are used to describe general or specific behaviors and attributes that are observed and measured

experimental research:  tests a hypothesis to determine cause-and-effect relationships

generalizability:  inferring that the results for a sample apply to the larger population

inter-rater reliability:  measure of agreement among observers on how they record and classify a particular event

naturalistic observation:  observation of behavior in its natural setting

observer bias:  when observations may be skewed to align with observer expectations

population:  overall group of individuals that the researchers are interested in

sample:  subset of individuals selected from the larger population

survey:  list of questions to be answered by research participants—given as paper-and-pencil questionnaires, administered electronically, or conducted verbally—allowing researchers to collect data from a large number of people

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• Descriptive Research.  Provided by : Boundless.  Located at :  https://www.boundless.com/psychology/textbooks/boundless-psychology-textbook/researching-psychology-2/types-of-research-studies-27/descriptive-research-124-12659/ .  License :  CC BY-SA: Attribution-ShareAlike
• Case Study.  Provided by : Wikipedia.  Located at :  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Case_study .  License :  CC BY-SA: Attribution-ShareAlike
• Rat man.  Provided by : Wikipedia.  Located at :  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rat_Man#Legacy .  License :  CC BY-SA: Attribution-ShareAlike
• Case study in psychology.  Provided by : Wikipedia.  Located at :  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Case_study_in_psychology .  License :  CC BY-SA: Attribution-ShareAlike
• Research Designs.  Authored by : Christie Napa Scollon.  Provided by : Singapore Management University.  Located at :  https://nobaproject.com/modules/research-designs#reference-6 .  Project : The Noba Project.  License :  CC BY-NC-SA: Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike
• Single subject design.  Provided by : Wikipedia.  Located at :  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single-subject_design .  License :  CC BY-SA: Attribution-ShareAlike
• Single subject research.  Provided by : Wikipedia.  Located at :  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single-subject_research#A-B-A-B .  License :  Public Domain: No Known Copyright
• Pills.  Authored by : qimono.  Provided by : Pixabay.  Located at :  https://pixabay.com/illustrations/pill-capsule-medicine-medical-1884775/ .  License :  CC0: No Rights Reserved
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• Scollon, C. N. (2020). Research designs. In R. Biswas-Diener & E. Diener (Eds), Noba textbook series: Psychology. Champaign, IL: DEF publishers. Retrieved from http://noba.to/acxb2thy ↵
• Slatcher, R. B., & Trentacosta, C. J. (2011). A naturalistic observation study of the links between parental depressive symptoms and preschoolers' behaviors in everyday life. Journal of family psychology : JFP : journal of the Division of Family Psychology of the American Psychological Association (Division 43), 25(3), 444–448. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0023728 ↵

Descriptive Research and Case Studies Copyright © by Meredith Palm is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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Research Methods In Psychology

Saul McLeod, PhD

Editor-in-Chief for Simply Psychology

BSc (Hons) Psychology, MRes, PhD, University of Manchester

Saul McLeod, PhD., is a qualified psychology teacher with over 18 years of experience in further and higher education. He has been published in peer-reviewed journals, including the Journal of Clinical Psychology.

Learn about our Editorial Process

Olivia Guy-Evans, MSc

Associate Editor for Simply Psychology

BSc (Hons) Psychology, MSc Psychology of Education

Olivia Guy-Evans is a writer and associate editor for Simply Psychology. She has previously worked in healthcare and educational sectors.

Research methods in psychology are systematic procedures used to observe, describe, predict, and explain behavior and mental processes. They include experiments, surveys, case studies, and naturalistic observations, ensuring data collection is objective and reliable to understand and explain psychological phenomena.

Hypotheses are statements about the prediction of the results, that can be verified or disproved by some investigation.

There are four types of hypotheses :

• Null Hypotheses (H0 ) – these predict that no difference will be found in the results between the conditions. Typically these are written ‘There will be no difference…’
• Alternative Hypotheses (Ha or H1) – these predict that there will be a significant difference in the results between the two conditions. This is also known as the experimental hypothesis.
• One-tailed (directional) hypotheses – these state the specific direction the researcher expects the results to move in, e.g. higher, lower, more, less. In a correlation study, the predicted direction of the correlation can be either positive or negative.
• Two-tailed (non-directional) hypotheses – these state that a difference will be found between the conditions of the independent variable but does not state the direction of a difference or relationship. Typically these are always written ‘There will be a difference ….’

All research has an alternative hypothesis (either a one-tailed or two-tailed) and a corresponding null hypothesis.

Once the research is conducted and results are found, psychologists must accept one hypothesis and reject the other. 

So, if a difference is found, the Psychologist would accept the alternative hypothesis and reject the null.  The opposite applies if no difference is found.

Sampling techniques

Sampling is the process of selecting a representative group from the population under study.

A sample is the participants you select from a target population (the group you are interested in) to make generalizations about.

Representative means the extent to which a sample mirrors a researcher’s target population and reflects its characteristics.

Generalisability means the extent to which their findings can be applied to the larger population of which their sample was a part.

• Volunteer sample : where participants pick themselves through newspaper adverts, noticeboards or online.
• Opportunity sampling : also known as convenience sampling , uses people who are available at the time the study is carried out and willing to take part. It is based on convenience.
• Random sampling : when every person in the target population has an equal chance of being selected. An example of random sampling would be picking names out of a hat.
• Systematic sampling : when a system is used to select participants. Picking every Nth person from all possible participants. N = the number of people in the research population / the number of people needed for the sample.
• Stratified sampling : when you identify the subgroups and select participants in proportion to their occurrences.
• Snowball sampling : when researchers find a few participants, and then ask them to find participants themselves and so on.
• Quota sampling : when researchers will be told to ensure the sample fits certain quotas, for example they might be told to find 90 participants, with 30 of them being unemployed.

Experiments always have an independent and dependent variable .

• The independent variable is the one the experimenter manipulates (the thing that changes between the conditions the participants are placed into). It is assumed to have a direct effect on the dependent variable.
• The dependent variable is the thing being measured, or the results of the experiment.

Operationalization of variables means making them measurable/quantifiable. We must use operationalization to ensure that variables are in a form that can be easily tested.

For instance, we can’t really measure ‘happiness’, but we can measure how many times a person smiles within a two-hour period. 

By operationalizing variables, we make it easy for someone else to replicate our research. Remember, this is important because we can check if our findings are reliable.

Extraneous variables are all variables which are not independent variable but could affect the results of the experiment.

It can be a natural characteristic of the participant, such as intelligence levels, gender, or age for example, or it could be a situational feature of the environment such as lighting or noise.

Demand characteristics are a type of extraneous variable that occurs if the participants work out the aims of the research study, they may begin to behave in a certain way.

For example, in Milgram’s research , critics argued that participants worked out that the shocks were not real and they administered them as they thought this was what was required of them. 

Extraneous variables must be controlled so that they do not affect (confound) the results.

Randomly allocating participants to their conditions or using a matched pairs experimental design can help to reduce participant variables. 

Situational variables are controlled by using standardized procedures, ensuring every participant in a given condition is treated in the same way

Experimental Design

Experimental design refers to how participants are allocated to each condition of the independent variable, such as a control or experimental group.

• Independent design ( between-groups design ): each participant is selected for only one group. With the independent design, the most common way of deciding which participants go into which group is by means of randomization. 
• Matched participants design : each participant is selected for only one group, but the participants in the two groups are matched for some relevant factor or factors (e.g. ability; sex; age).
• Repeated measures design ( within groups) : each participant appears in both groups, so that there are exactly the same participants in each group.
• The main problem with the repeated measures design is that there may well be order effects. Their experiences during the experiment may change the participants in various ways.
• They may perform better when they appear in the second group because they have gained useful information about the experiment or about the task. On the other hand, they may perform less well on the second occasion because of tiredness or boredom.
• Counterbalancing is the best way of preventing order effects from disrupting the findings of an experiment, and involves ensuring that each condition is equally likely to be used first and second by the participants.

If we wish to compare two groups with respect to a given independent variable, it is essential to make sure that the two groups do not differ in any other important way. 

Experimental Methods

All experimental methods involve an iv (independent variable) and dv (dependent variable)..

The researcher decides where the experiment will take place, at what time, with which participants, in what circumstances,  using a standardized procedure.

• Field experiments are conducted in the everyday (natural) environment of the participants. The experimenter still manipulates the IV, but in a real-life setting. It may be possible to control extraneous variables, though such control is more difficult than in a lab experiment.
• Natural experiments are when a naturally occurring IV is investigated that isn’t deliberately manipulated, it exists anyway. Participants are not randomly allocated, and the natural event may only occur rarely.

Case studies are in-depth investigations of a person, group, event, or community. It uses information from a range of sources, such as from the person concerned and also from their family and friends.

Many techniques may be used such as interviews, psychological tests, observations and experiments. Case studies are generally longitudinal: in other words, they follow the individual or group over an extended period of time. 

Case studies are widely used in psychology and among the best-known ones carried out were by Sigmund Freud . He conducted very detailed investigations into the private lives of his patients in an attempt to both understand and help them overcome their illnesses.

Case studies provide rich qualitative data and have high levels of ecological validity. However, it is difficult to generalize from individual cases as each one has unique characteristics.

Correlational Studies

Correlation means association; it is a measure of the extent to which two variables are related. One of the variables can be regarded as the predictor variable with the other one as the outcome variable.

Correlational studies typically involve obtaining two different measures from a group of participants, and then assessing the degree of association between the measures. 

The predictor variable can be seen as occurring before the outcome variable in some sense. It is called the predictor variable, because it forms the basis for predicting the value of the outcome variable.

Relationships between variables can be displayed on a graph or as a numerical score called a correlation coefficient.

• If an increase in one variable tends to be associated with an increase in the other, then this is known as a positive correlation .
• If an increase in one variable tends to be associated with a decrease in the other, then this is known as a negative correlation .
• A zero correlation occurs when there is no relationship between variables.

After looking at the scattergraph, if we want to be sure that a significant relationship does exist between the two variables, a statistical test of correlation can be conducted, such as Spearman’s rho.

The test will give us a score, called a correlation coefficient . This is a value between 0 and 1, and the closer to 1 the score is, the stronger the relationship between the variables. This value can be both positive e.g. 0.63, or negative -0.63.

A correlation between variables, however, does not automatically mean that the change in one variable is the cause of the change in the values of the other variable. A correlation only shows if there is a relationship between variables.

Correlation does not always prove causation, as a third variable may be involved. 

Interview Methods

Interviews are commonly divided into two types: structured and unstructured.

A fixed, predetermined set of questions is put to every participant in the same order and in the same way. 

Responses are recorded on a questionnaire, and the researcher presets the order and wording of questions, and sometimes the range of alternative answers.

The interviewer stays within their role and maintains social distance from the interviewee.

There are no set questions, and the participant can raise whatever topics he/she feels are relevant and ask them in their own way. Questions are posed about participants’ answers to the subject

Unstructured interviews are most useful in qualitative research to analyze attitudes and values.

Though they rarely provide a valid basis for generalization, their main advantage is that they enable the researcher to probe social actors’ subjective point of view. 

Questionnaire Method

Questionnaires can be thought of as a kind of written interview. They can be carried out face to face, by telephone, or post.

The choice of questions is important because of the need to avoid bias or ambiguity in the questions, ‘leading’ the respondent or causing offense.

• Open questions are designed to encourage a full, meaningful answer using the subject’s own knowledge and feelings. They provide insights into feelings, opinions, and understanding. Example: “How do you feel about that situation?”
• Closed questions can be answered with a simple “yes” or “no” or specific information, limiting the depth of response. They are useful for gathering specific facts or confirming details. Example: “Do you feel anxious in crowds?”

Its other practical advantages are that it is cheaper than face-to-face interviews and can be used to contact many respondents scattered over a wide area relatively quickly.

Observations

There are different types of observation methods :

• Covert observation is where the researcher doesn’t tell the participants they are being observed until after the study is complete. There could be ethical problems or deception and consent with this particular observation method.
• Overt observation is where a researcher tells the participants they are being observed and what they are being observed for.
• Controlled : behavior is observed under controlled laboratory conditions (e.g., Bandura’s Bobo doll study).
• Natural : Here, spontaneous behavior is recorded in a natural setting.
• Participant : Here, the observer has direct contact with the group of people they are observing. The researcher becomes a member of the group they are researching.  
• Non-participant (aka “fly on the wall): The researcher does not have direct contact with the people being observed. The observation of participants’ behavior is from a distance

Pilot Study

A pilot  study is a small scale preliminary study conducted in order to evaluate the feasibility of the key s teps in a future, full-scale project.

A pilot study is an initial run-through of the procedures to be used in an investigation; it involves selecting a few people and trying out the study on them. It is possible to save time, and in some cases, money, by identifying any flaws in the procedures designed by the researcher.

A pilot study can help the researcher spot any ambiguities (i.e. unusual things) or confusion in the information given to participants or problems with the task devised.

Sometimes the task is too hard, and the researcher may get a floor effect, because none of the participants can score at all or can complete the task – all performances are low.

The opposite effect is a ceiling effect, when the task is so easy that all achieve virtually full marks or top performances and are “hitting the ceiling”.

Research Design

In cross-sectional research , a researcher compares multiple segments of the population at the same time

Sometimes, we want to see how people change over time, as in studies of human development and lifespan. Longitudinal research is a research design in which data-gathering is administered repeatedly over an extended period of time.

In cohort studies , the participants must share a common factor or characteristic such as age, demographic, or occupation. A cohort study is a type of longitudinal study in which researchers monitor and observe a chosen population over an extended period.

Triangulation means using more than one research method to improve the study’s validity.

Reliability

Reliability is a measure of consistency, if a particular measurement is repeated and the same result is obtained then it is described as being reliable.

• Test-retest reliability :  assessing the same person on two different occasions which shows the extent to which the test produces the same answers.
• Inter-observer reliability : the extent to which there is an agreement between two or more observers.

Meta-Analysis

Meta-analysis is a statistical procedure used to combine and synthesize findings from multiple independent studies to estimate the average effect size for a particular research question.

Meta-analysis goes beyond traditional narrative reviews by using statistical methods to integrate the results of several studies, leading to a more objective appraisal of the evidence.

This is done by looking through various databases, and then decisions are made about what studies are to be included/excluded.

• Strengths : Increases the conclusions’ validity as they’re based on a wider range.
• Weaknesses : Research designs in studies can vary, so they are not truly comparable.

Peer Review

A researcher submits an article to a journal. The choice of the journal may be determined by the journal’s audience or prestige.

The journal selects two or more appropriate experts (psychologists working in a similar field) to peer review the article without payment. The peer reviewers assess: the methods and designs used, originality of the findings, the validity of the original research findings and its content, structure and language.

Feedback from the reviewer determines whether the article is accepted. The article may be: Accepted as it is, accepted with revisions, sent back to the author to revise and re-submit or rejected without the possibility of submission.

The editor makes the final decision whether to accept or reject the research report based on the reviewers comments/ recommendations.

Peer review is important because it prevent faulty data from entering the public domain, it provides a way of checking the validity of findings and the quality of the methodology and is used to assess the research rating of university departments.

Peer reviews may be an ideal, whereas in practice there are lots of problems. For example, it slows publication down and may prevent unusual, new work being published. Some reviewers might use it as an opportunity to prevent competing researchers from publishing work.

Some people doubt whether peer review can really prevent the publication of fraudulent research.

The advent of the internet means that a lot of research and academic comment is being published without official peer reviews than before, though systems are evolving on the internet where everyone really has a chance to offer their opinions and police the quality of research.

Types of Data

• Quantitative data is numerical data e.g. reaction time or number of mistakes. It represents how much or how long, how many there are of something. A tally of behavioral categories and closed questions in a questionnaire collect quantitative data.
• Qualitative data is virtually any type of information that can be observed and recorded that is not numerical in nature and can be in the form of written or verbal communication. Open questions in questionnaires and accounts from observational studies collect qualitative data.
• Primary data is first-hand data collected for the purpose of the investigation.
• Secondary data is information that has been collected by someone other than the person who is conducting the research e.g. taken from journals, books or articles.

Validity means how well a piece of research actually measures what it sets out to, or how well it reflects the reality it claims to represent.

Validity is whether the observed effect is genuine and represents what is actually out there in the world.

• Concurrent validity is the extent to which a psychological measure relates to an existing similar measure and obtains close results. For example, a new intelligence test compared to an established test.
• Face validity : does the test measure what it’s supposed to measure ‘on the face of it’. This is done by ‘eyeballing’ the measuring or by passing it to an expert to check.
• Ecological validit y is the extent to which findings from a research study can be generalized to other settings / real life.
• Temporal validity is the extent to which findings from a research study can be generalized to other historical times.

Features of Science

• Paradigm – A set of shared assumptions and agreed methods within a scientific discipline.
• Paradigm shift – The result of the scientific revolution: a significant change in the dominant unifying theory within a scientific discipline.
• Objectivity – When all sources of personal bias are minimised so not to distort or influence the research process.
• Empirical method – Scientific approaches that are based on the gathering of evidence through direct observation and experience.
• Replicability – The extent to which scientific procedures and findings can be repeated by other researchers.
• Falsifiability – The principle that a theory cannot be considered scientific unless it admits the possibility of being proved untrue.

Statistical Testing

A significant result is one where there is a low probability that chance factors were responsible for any observed difference, correlation, or association in the variables tested.

If our test is significant, we can reject our null hypothesis and accept our alternative hypothesis.

If our test is not significant, we can accept our null hypothesis and reject our alternative hypothesis. A null hypothesis is a statement of no effect.

In Psychology, we use p < 0.05 (as it strikes a balance between making a type I and II error) but p < 0.01 is used in tests that could cause harm like introducing a new drug.

A type I error is when the null hypothesis is rejected when it should have been accepted (happens when a lenient significance level is used, an error of optimism).

A type II error is when the null hypothesis is accepted when it should have been rejected (happens when a stringent significance level is used, an error of pessimism).

Ethical Issues

• Informed consent is when participants are able to make an informed judgment about whether to take part. It causes them to guess the aims of the study and change their behavior.
• To deal with it, we can gain presumptive consent or ask them to formally indicate their agreement to participate but it may invalidate the purpose of the study and it is not guaranteed that the participants would understand.
• Deception should only be used when it is approved by an ethics committee, as it involves deliberately misleading or withholding information. Participants should be fully debriefed after the study but debriefing can’t turn the clock back.
• All participants should be informed at the beginning that they have the right to withdraw if they ever feel distressed or uncomfortable.
• It causes bias as the ones that stayed are obedient and some may not withdraw as they may have been given incentives or feel like they’re spoiling the study. Researchers can offer the right to withdraw data after participation.
• Participants should all have protection from harm . The researcher should avoid risks greater than those experienced in everyday life and they should stop the study if any harm is suspected. However, the harm may not be apparent at the time of the study.
• Confidentiality concerns the communication of personal information. The researchers should not record any names but use numbers or false names though it may not be possible as it is sometimes possible to work out who the researchers were.

Psychology Research Guide: Finding Scholarly Sources

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• Scholarly vs. Popular Sources
• Finding Scholarly Sources
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Library Databases: What are they?

Psychology Journals

Academic Search Complete

Journals by title & requesting articles.

• Journals by Title Use Serials Solutions to search for a specific journal title in our database collections. Click on the database from the list that has the correct date range and full-text access.
• Inter-Library Loan Still can't find what you need? Request an article from one of our partner libraries. This process takes a little longer, so give yourself plenty of time to get the article.

You have access to millions of titles through Locate , our library catalog, and MOBIUS OpenRS , the statewide catalog. Students often find recently published titles about their topics or use slightly older titles as additional resources. Remember to search for books early -- if you request books from another library, they can take a week or so to arrive at our campuses. 

To learn more about using Locate to find books available at the library, watch this video . 

To learn more about requesting books with the MOBIUS OpenRS catalog, watch this video . 

Finding Books & Articles

This video will walk you through the steps required to find articles and books through Jefferson College's search tool, Discovery. 

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Descriptive Research in Psychology: Methods, Applications, and Importance

Picture a psychologist’s toolkit, brimming with an array of methods designed to unravel the mysteries of the human mind—among them, the unsung hero of descriptive research, a powerful lens through which we can observe, understand, and illuminate the vast landscape of human behavior and cognition. This versatile approach to psychological inquiry serves as a cornerstone in our quest to comprehend the intricacies of the human experience, offering insights that shape our understanding of everything from child development to social interactions.

Descriptive research in psychology is like a skilled artist’s sketch, capturing the essence of human behavior and mental processes with precision and depth. It’s the foundation upon which many psychological theories are built, providing a rich tapestry of observations that inform more complex studies. Unlike experimental methods that manipulate variables to establish cause-and-effect relationships, descriptive research aims to paint a vivid picture of what is, rather than what could be.

Defining Descriptive Research in Psychology: More Than Meets the Eye

At its core, descriptive research in psychology is a systematic approach to observing and cataloging human behavior, thoughts, and emotions in their natural context. It’s the scientific equivalent of people-watching, but with a structured methodology and a keen eye for detail. This type of research doesn’t just scratch the surface; it dives deep into the nuances of human experience, capturing the subtleties that might otherwise go unnoticed.

The beauty of descriptive research lies in its versatility. It can take many forms, each offering a unique perspective on the human psyche. From participant observation in psychology , where researchers immerse themselves in the world they’re studying, to meticulous case studies that explore individual experiences in depth, descriptive research adapts to the questions at hand.

One of the primary goals of descriptive research is to provide a comprehensive account of a phenomenon. It’s not about proving or disproving hypotheses; instead, it’s about gathering rich, detailed information that can later inform more targeted inquiries. This approach is particularly valuable when exploring new or understudied areas of psychology, serving as a springboard for future research.

Methods and Techniques: The Descriptive Researcher’s Toolkit

The methods employed in descriptive research are as diverse as the questions they seek to answer. Let’s take a closer look at some of the key tools in the descriptive researcher’s arsenal:

1. Observational methods: Picture a researcher sitting quietly in a playground, noting how children interact. This direct observation can yield invaluable insights into social development and behavior patterns.

2. Case studies: These in-depth explorations of individual experiences can shed light on rare psychological phenomena or provide detailed accounts of therapeutic interventions.

3. Surveys and questionnaires: By tapping into the thoughts and opinions of large groups, researchers can identify trends and patterns in attitudes and behaviors.

4. Archival research in psychology : Delving into historical records and existing datasets can uncover long-term trends and provide context for current psychological phenomena.

5. Naturalistic observation: This method involves studying behavior in its natural environment, without interference from the researcher. It’s like being a fly on the wall, capturing authentic human interactions.

Each of these methods has its strengths and limitations, and skilled researchers often combine multiple approaches to gain a more comprehensive understanding of their subject matter.

Applications: Descriptive Research in Action

The applications of descriptive research in psychology are as varied as human behavior itself. Let’s explore how this approach illuminates different areas of psychological study:

In developmental psychology, descriptive research plays a crucial role in understanding how children grow and change over time. Longitudinal studies in psychology , which follow the same group of individuals over an extended period, provide invaluable insights into the trajectory of human development.

Social psychology relies heavily on descriptive methods to explore how people interact and influence one another. For instance, observational studies in public spaces can reveal patterns of nonverbal communication or group dynamics that might be difficult to capture in a laboratory setting.

Clinical psychology often employs case studies to delve into the complexities of mental health disorders. These detailed accounts can provide rich, contextual information about the lived experiences of individuals dealing with psychological challenges.

In educational psychology, descriptive research helps identify effective teaching strategies and learning patterns. Classroom observations and student surveys can inform educational policies and practices, ultimately improving learning outcomes.

Real-world examples of descriptive studies abound. Consider the famous “Bobo doll” experiments by Albert Bandura, which used observational methods to explore how children learn aggressive behaviors. While not strictly descriptive in nature, these studies incorporated descriptive elements that provided crucial insights into social learning theory.

Strengths and Limitations: A Balanced View

Like any research method, descriptive research has its strengths and limitations. On the plus side, it offers a level of ecological validity that’s hard to match in controlled experiments. By studying behavior in natural settings, researchers can capture the complexity and nuance of real-world phenomena.

Descriptive research is also particularly adept at identifying patterns and generating hypotheses. It’s often the first step in a longer research process, providing the foundation for more targeted experimental studies. This approach can be especially valuable when dealing with sensitive topics or populations that might be difficult to study in more controlled settings.

However, it’s important to acknowledge the limitations of descriptive research. One of the primary challenges is the directionality problem in psychology . While descriptive studies can identify relationships between variables, they can’t establish causation. This limitation can sometimes lead to misinterpretation of results or overreaching conclusions.

Another potential pitfall is researcher bias. The subjective nature of some descriptive methods, particularly observational studies, can introduce unintended biases into the data collection and interpretation process. Researchers must be vigilant in maintaining objectivity and employing strategies to minimize bias.

When compared to experimental research, descriptive studies may seem less rigorous or definitive. However, this perception overlooks the unique value that descriptive research brings to the table. While experiments are excellent for testing specific hypotheses and establishing causal relationships, they often lack the richness and contextual detail that descriptive methods provide.

Conducting a Descriptive Study: From Planning to Publication

Embarking on a descriptive research project requires careful planning and execution. Here’s a roadmap for aspiring researchers:

1. Define your research question: Start with a clear, focused question that guides your inquiry. What specific aspect of human behavior or cognition do you want to explore?

2. Choose your method: Select the descriptive technique(s) best suited to answer your research question. Will you be conducting surveys, observing behavior, or delving into case studies?

3. Develop your data collection tools: Create robust instruments for gathering information, whether it’s a well-designed questionnaire or a structured observation protocol.

4. Recruit participants: If your study involves human subjects, ensure you have a representative sample and obtain proper informed consent.

5. Collect data: Implement your chosen method(s) with consistency and attention to detail. Remember, the quality of your data will directly impact the value of your findings.

6. Analyze and interpret: Once you’ve gathered your data, it’s time to make sense of it. Look for patterns, themes, and relationships within your observations.

7. Draw conclusions: Based on your analysis, what can you say about the phenomenon you’ve studied? Be careful not to overstate your findings or imply causation where none has been established.

Throughout this process, it’s crucial to keep ethical considerations at the forefront. Respect for participants’ privacy, confidentiality, and well-being should guide every step of your research.

The Future of Descriptive Research: Evolving Methods and New Frontiers

As we look to the future, descriptive research in psychology continues to evolve and adapt to new challenges and opportunities. Emerging technologies are opening up exciting possibilities for data collection and analysis. For instance, wearable devices and smartphone apps are enabling researchers to gather real-time data on behavior and physiological responses in natural settings.

The rise of big data and advanced analytics is also transforming descriptive research. By analyzing vast datasets of human behavior online, researchers can identify patterns and trends on a scale previously unimaginable. However, this new frontier also brings ethical challenges, particularly around privacy and consent.

Another promising direction is the integration of descriptive methods with other research approaches. Quasi-experiments in psychology , which combine elements of descriptive and experimental research, offer a middle ground that can leverage the strengths of both approaches.

As we continue to unravel the complexities of the human mind, descriptive research will undoubtedly play a crucial role. Its ability to capture the richness and diversity of human experience makes it an indispensable tool in the psychologist’s toolkit.

In conclusion, descriptive research in psychology is far more than just a preliminary step in the scientific process. It’s a powerful approach that provides the foundation for our understanding of human behavior and mental processes. By offering detailed, contextual insights into the human experience, descriptive research helps us identify patterns, generate hypotheses, and ultimately advance our knowledge of psychology.

From exploring the intricacies of child development to unraveling the dynamics of social interactions, descriptive research continues to illuminate the vast landscape of human psychology. As we move forward, the challenge for researchers will be to harness new technologies and methodologies while maintaining the core strengths of descriptive approaches – their ability to capture the nuance, complexity, and diversity of human experience.

In the end, it’s this deep, rich understanding of human behavior that drives psychological science forward, informing theories, shaping interventions, and ultimately helping us to better understand ourselves and others. As we continue to explore the fascinating world of the human mind, descriptive research will remain an essential tool, helping us to see the world through the eyes of those we study and to tell their stories with clarity, empathy, and scientific rigor.

References:

1. Coolican, H. (2014). Research methods and statistics in psychology. Psychology Press.

2. Creswell, J. W., & Creswell, J. D. (2017). Research design: Qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods approaches. Sage publications.

3. Goodwin, C. J., & Goodwin, K. A. (2016). Research in psychology: Methods and design. John Wiley & Sons.

4. Kazdin, A. E. (2011). Single-case research designs: Methods for clinical and applied settings. Oxford University Press.

5. Leedy, P. D., & Ormrod, J. E. (2015). Practical research: Planning and design. Pearson.

6. Marczyk, G., DeMatteo, D., & Festinger, D. (2005). Essentials of research design and methodology. John Wiley & Sons.

7. Mertens, D. M. (2014). Research and evaluation in education and psychology: Integrating diversity with quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods. Sage publications.

8. Rosenthal, R., & Rosnow, R. L. (2008). Essentials of behavioral research: Methods and data analysis. McGraw-Hill.

9. Shaughnessy, J. J., Zechmeister, E. B., & Zechmeister, J. S. (2015). Research methods in psychology. McGraw-Hill Education.

10. Willig, C., & Rogers, W. S. (Eds.). (2017). The SAGE handbook of qualitative research in psychology. Sage.

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• How to find Psychology Articles
• Using APA Thesaurus

Empirical Articles

• How to Limit to Empirical Articles
• What are they?
• How to Read them?
• Main Sections

Empirical articles are those in which authors report on their own study. The authors will have collected data to answer a research question.  Empirical research contains observed and measured examples that inform or answer the research question. The data can be collected in a variety of ways such as interviews, surveys, questionnaires, observations, and various other quantitative and qualitative research methods. 

Empirical research  is based on observed and measured phenomena and derives knowledge from actual experience rather than from theory or belief. 

How do you know if a study is empirical? Read the subheadings within the article, book, or report and look for a description of the research "methodology." Ask yourself: Could I recreate this study and test these results?

Key characteristics to look for:

• Specific research questions  to be answered
• Definition of the  population, behavior, or   phenomena  being studied
• Description of the  process  used to study this population or phenomena, including selection criteria, controls, and testing instruments (such as surveys)

Another hint: some scholarly journals use a specific layout, called the "IMRaD" format, to communicate empirical research findings. Such articles typically have 4 components:

• Introduction : sometimes called "literature review" -- what is currently known about the topic -- usually includes a theoretical framework and/or discussion of previous studies
• Methodology:  sometimes called "research design" -- how to recreate the study -- usually describes the population, research process, and analytical tools
• Results : sometimes called "findings"  --  what was learned through the study -- usually appears as statistical data or as substantial quotations from research participants
• Discussion : sometimes called "conclusion" or "implications" -- why the study is important -- usually describes how the research results influence professional practices or future studies

General Advice

• Plan to read the article more than once
• Don't read it all the way through in one sitting, read strategically first.
• Identify relevant conclusions and limitations of study

Abstract: Get a sense of the article’s purpose and findings. Use it to assess if the article is useful for your research.

Skim: Review headings to understand the structure and label parts if needed.

Introduction/Literature Review: Identify the main argument, problem, previous work, proposed next steps, and hypothesis.

Methodology: Understand data collection methods, data sources, and variables.

Findings/Results: Examine tables and figures to see if they support the hypothesis without relying on captions.

Discussion/Conclusion: Determine if the findings support the argument/hypothesis and if the authors acknowledge any limitations.

Anatomy of a Research Paper    by Richard D. Branson published in Respir Care.  2004 October;  49(10): 1222–1228.

How to Read a Scholarly Chemistry Artricle -  Rider tutorial.

How to read and understand a scientific paper - a guide for non-scientists  - Violent Metaphors (blog post).

Compare your article to this table to help determine you have located an empirical study/research report.

Look for the following words in the title/abstract: empirical, experiment, research, or study.

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Department of Psychology College of Social Science

How well do career fit tests work new msu study compares 5 types of assessments.

September 16, 2024 - Shelly DeJong

The study , published in the Journal of Applied Psychology, is the most comprehensive investigation of career fit tests that currently exists. The researchers evaluated five assessments that measure fit between people and jobs based on interests, values, personality, skills or knowledge.

The study found that individuals are most likely to succeed in jobs where they show high fit across multiple domains. But knowledge fit and skill fit were the strongest predictors of income. For job satisfaction, interest fit was the strongest predictor. In contrast, value fit and personality fit tended to be weaker predictors of career outcomes, although they still contributed some unique information.

To conduct this study, the researchers developed measures to map each variable to career characteristics from the Occupational Information Network, or O*NET, the database maintained by the U.S. Department of Labor that collects standardized information on over 900 occupations. To support future applications, the researchers made their assessment measures publicly available and provided guidance about how the measures can be used in practice.

The researchers hope that these findings can improve the use of fit assessments for career exploration and job search practices, especially in settings where time and resources are limited.

“In career guidance settings alone, millions of people take fit assessments each month to explore how their unique personal attributes relate to different career paths. Our results can inform decisions about which assessments to use in settings where time and resources are limited,” said Hoff. “We’re excited to see how our findings can improve the use of fit assessments in job search practices.”

The study was also co-authored by Zihan Liu, an assistant professor at the University of Illinois Springfield. 

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The University of Tulsa acquires Fab Lab Tulsa

The University of Tulsa has announced the acquisition of Fab Lab Tulsa, which provides access to digital fabrication tools and resources throughout the community through membership and programming. The move is part of TU’s ongoing efforts to promote innovation and aligns with the university’s global reputation in engineering, computer science, and the creative arts. “We […]

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Unique organizational studies program offers expansive opportunities

At roughly 75 majors, organizational studies is one of the largest majors in The University of Tulsa’s Kendall College of Arts & Sciences. From social sciences, media, and arts to business administration, the program provides students a wide range of knowledge and skills, rather than limiting them to a single discipline. But as a so-called […]

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From field work to the classroom, Grau mentors women in energy

Anne Grau has been involved in geology for three decades – working for energy leaders such as EOG Resources and Total Energies – and definitely knows what it’s like to be the only woman in the room. “Being a woman in the oil and gas industry often meant I was one woman in 200 at […]

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TU Law celebrates alumna Sara Hill’s historic confirmation to federal bench

The University of Tulsa’s College of Law congratulates alumna Sara Hill (JD ’03) as she becomes the first Native American woman to serve as a federal judge in Oklahoma. This historic appointment marks a significant milestone in the state’s legal landscape. The U.S. Senate on Tuesday voted overwhelmingly to confirm Hill, who fills a vacant […]

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New faculty member brings expertise and INSPIRE lab to Psychology Department

The University of Tulsa Department of Psychology has a wide variety of faculty-led research labs. From the Exposure, Relaxation & Rescripting Therapy for Chronic Nightmares study to the Psychophysiology Laboratory for Affective Neuroscience lab, TU offers students the opportunity to participate in ongoing research and even publish their findings. New to Kendall College of Arts […]

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More than 60 years of James Joyce Quarterly

Legend has it that Thomas Staley, former provost of The University of Tulsa, founded the James Joyce Quarterly, fondly known as JJQ, in his garage. Or was it his kitchen table? That was more than 60 years ago, and since then the journal has become an internationally esteemed publication known for its publishing of critical […]

Psychology professor pioneers new treatment for children with chronic nightmares

Like most people, children benefit from deep, restful sleep. But when their sleep is repeatedly interrupted by nightmares, they are prone to serious mental health consequences, including daytime distress, hyperarousal, and suicidal thoughts and behaviors. Given these ill effects, a recent systematic review underscored the need for clinical trials for treatments that address nightmares in children.

University of Tulsa Professor of Psychology Lisa DeMarni Cromer is one of only a handful of researchers worldwide immersed in the study of this urgent topic. A clinical psychologist and the director of UTulsa’s SPARTA lab , Cromer was the lead author on an article published this summer in Frontiers in Sleep regarding research that deployed cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) with children who experience chronic nightmares.

Cromer’s work is the culmination of 12 years of research conducted in the Kendall College of Arts & Sciences and devoted to helping youths and young adults be “good sleepers.” Initially, Cromer addressed her inquiries to trauma-related nightmares. Soon after the first pilot study, however, she modified the treatment “so that it could benefit all kids with chronic nightmares.”

As reported in their recent publication, Cromer tested a telehealth CBT approach in collaboration with Dr. Tara Buck at the University of Oklahoma School of Community Medicine. The subjects, ages 6 to 17, received exposure, relaxation, and rescripting therapy, as well as psychoeducation on sleep, nightmares, and related topics. Results were positive: After just five treatment sessions, there was statistically significant improvement in nightmare distress as well as the number of weekly nightmares and nights with awakening (see figure 1).

“The door to this fascinating area was opened for me by my colleague, mentor, and friend Joanne Davis , Ph.D., soon after I joined UTulsa,” said Cromer, noting that Davis’ student Shantel Fernandez-Lopez (M.A. ’05, Ph.D. ’09) completed the initial adaptation before she came on board. “Joanne’s work on adults and mine on children have shown that individuals who improve immediately after treatment will continue to see gains after treatment. If we followed up with our study’s kids in six months, we would expect their nightmares to be almost entirely gone.”

In addition to collaborating with her peers, Cromer’s research was supported by many undergraduates. Working in her SPARTA lab, they created kid-friendly graphics for the therapy manuals and sticker charts to motivate parents, as well as entered the study’s data. “I’m so proud of their contributions and of the fact that many have now gone on to graduate school,” Cromer remarked.

If you know of a youth with nightmares who might quality for the study, call 918-631-3242 or email [email protected] or [email protected] for more information. Clinicians who wish to receive training on the treatment can reach out to [email protected] .

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APA Handbook of Research Methods in Psychology

Available formats.

• Table of contents
• Contributor bios
• Book details

With significant new and updated content across dozens of chapters, this second edition  presents the most exhaustive treatment available of the techniques psychologists and others have developed to help them pursue a shared understanding of why humans think, feel, and behave the way they do.

The initial chapters in this indispensable three-volume handbook address broad, crosscutting issues faced by researchers: the philosophical, ethical, and societal underpinnings of psychological research. Next, chapters detail the research planning process, describe the range of measurement techniques that psychologists most often use to collect data, consider how to determine the best measurement techniques for a particular purpose, and examine ways to assess the trustworthiness of measures.

Additional chapters cover various aspects of quantitative, qualitative, neuropsychological, and biological research designs, presenting an array of options and their nuanced distinctions. Chapters on techniques for data analysis follow, and important issues in writing up research to share with the community of psychologists are discussed in the handbook’s concluding chapters.

Among the newly written chapters in the second edition, the handbook’s stellar roster of authors cover literature searching, workflow and reproducibility, research funding, neuroimaging, various facets of a wide range of research designs and data analysis methods, and updated information on the publication process, including research data management and sharing, questionable practices in statistical analysis, and ethical issues in manuscript preparation and authorship.

Volume 1. Foundations, Planning, Measures, and Psychometrics

Editorial Board

About the Editors

Contributors

A Note from the Publisher

Introduction: Objectives of Psychological Research and Their Relations to Research Methods

Part I. Philosophical, Ethical, and Societal Underpinnings of Psychological Research

• Chapter 1. Perspectives on the Epistemological Bases for Qualitative Research Carla Willig
• Chapter 2. Frameworks for Causal Inference in Psychological Science Peter M. Steiner, William R. Shadish, and Kristynn J. Sullivan
• Chapter 3. Ethics in Psychological Research: Guidelines and Regulations Adam L. Fried and Kate L. Jansen
• Chapter 4. Ethics and Regulation of Research With Nonhuman Animals Sangeeta Panicker, Chana K. Akins, and Beth Ann Rice
• Chapter 5. Cross-Cultural Research Methods David Masumoto and Fons J. R. van de Vijver
• Chapter 6.Research With Populations that Experience Marginalization George P. Knight, Rebecca M. B. White, Stefanie Martinez-Fuentes, Mark W. Roosa, and Adriana J. Umaña-Taylor

Part II. Planning Research

• Chapter 7. Developing Testable and Important Research Questions Frederick T. L. Leong, Neal Schmitt, and Brent J. Lyons
• Chapter 8. Searching With a Purpose: How to Use Literature Searching to Support Your Research Diana Ramirez and Margaret J. Foster
• Chapter 9. Psychological Measurement: Scaling and Analysis Heather Hayes and Susan E. Embretson
• Chapter 10. Sample Size Planning Ken Kelley, Samantha F. Anderson, and Scott E. Maxwell
• Chapter 11. Workflow and Reproducibility Oliver Kirchkamp
• Chapter 12. Obtaining and Evaluating Research Funding Jonathan S. Comer and Amanda L. Sanchez

Part III. Measurement Methods

• Chapter 13. Behavioral Observation Roger Bakeman and Vicenç Quera
• Chapter 14. Question Order Effects Lisa Lee, Parvati Krishnamurty, and Struther Van Horn
• Chapter 15. Interviews and Interviewing Techniques Anna Madill
• Chapter 16. Using Intensive Longitudinal Methods in Psychological Research Masumi Iida, Patrick E. Shrout, Jean-Philippe Laurenceau, and Niall Bolger
• Chapter 17. Automated Analyses of Natural Language in Psychological Research Laura K. Allen, Arthur C. Graesser, and Danielle S. McNamara
• Chapter 18. Objective Tests as Instruments of Psychological Theory and Research David Watson
• Chapter 19. Norm- and Criterion-Referenced Testing Kurt F. Geisinger
• Chapter 20. The Current Status of "Projective" "Tests" Robert E. McGrath, Alec Twibell, and Elizabeth J. Carroll
• Chapter 21. Brief Instruments and Short Forms Emily A. Atkinson, Carolyn M. Pearson Carter, Jessica L. Combs Rohr, and Gregory T. Smith
• Chapter 22. Eye Movements, Pupillometry, and Cognitive Processes Simon P. Liversedge, Sara V. Milledge, and Hazel I. Blythe
• Chapter 23. Response Times Roger Ratcliff
• Chapter 24. Psychophysics: Concepts, Methods, and Frontiers Allie C. Hexley, Takuma Morimoto, and Manuel Spitschan
• Chapter 25. The Perimetric Physiological Measurement of Psychological Constructs Louis G. Tassinary, Ursula Hess, Luis M. Carcoba, and Joseph M. Orr
• Chapter 26. Salivary Hormone Assays Linda Becker, Nicholas Rohleder, and Oliver C. Schultheiss
• Chapter 27. Electro- and Magnetoencephalographic Methods in Psychology Eddie Harmon-Jones, David M. Amodio, Philip A. Gable, and Suzanne Dikker
• Chapter 28. Event-Related Potentials Steven J. Luck
• Chapter 29. Functional Neuroimaging Megan T. deBettencourt, Wilma A. Bainbridge, Monica D. Rosenberg
• Chapter 30. Noninvasive Stimulation of the Cerebral Cortex Dennis J. L. G. Schutter
• Chapter 31. Combined Neuroimaging Methods Marius Moisa and Christian C. Ruff
• Chapter 32. Neuroimaging Analysis Methods Yanyu Xiong and Sharlene D. Newman

Part IV. Psychometrics

• Chapter 33. Reliability Sean P. Lane, Elizabeth N. Aslinger, and Patrick E. Shrout
• Chapter 34. Generalizability Theory Xiaohong Gao and Deborah J. Harris
• Chapter 35. Construct Validity Kevin J. Grimm and Keith F. Widaman
• Chapter 36. Item-Level Factor Nisha C. Gottfredson, Brian D. Stucky, and A. T. Panter
• Chapter 37. Item Response Theory Steven P. Reise and Tyler M. Moore
• Chapter 38. Measuring Test Performance With Signal Detection Theory Techniques Teresa A. Treat and Richard J. Viken

Volume 2. Research Designs: Quantitative, Qualitative, Neuropsychological, and Biological

Part I. Qualitative Research Methods

• Chapter 1. Developments in Qualitative Inquiry Sarah Riley and Andrea LaMarre
• Chapter 2. Metasynthesis of Qualitative Research Sally Thorne
• Chapter 3. Grounded Theory and Psychological Research Robert Thornberg, Elaine Keane, and Malgorzata Wójcik
• Chapter 4. Thematic Analysis Virginia Braun and Victoria Clarke
• Chapter 5. Phenomenological Methodology, Methods, and Procedures for Research in Psychology Frederick J. Wertz
• Chapter 6. Narrative Analysis Javier Monforte and Brett Smith
• Chapter 7. Ethnomethodology and Conversation Analysis Paul ten Have
• Chapter 8. Discourse Analysis and Discursive Psychology Chris McVittie and Andy McKinlay
• Chapter 9. Ethnography in Psychological Research Elizabeth Fein and Jonathan Yahalom
• Chapter 10. Visual Research in Psychology Paula Reavey, Jon Prosser, and Steven D. Brown
• Chapter 11. Researching the Temporal Karen Henwood and Fiona Shirani

Part II. Working Across Epistemologies, Methodologies, and Methods

• Chapter 12. Mixed Methods Research in Psychology Timothy C. Guetterman and Analay Perez
• Chapter 13. The "Cases Within Trials" (CWT) Method: An Example of a Mixed-Methods Research Design Daniel B. Fishman
• Chapter 14. Researching With American Indian and Alaska Native Communities: Pursuing Partnerships for Psychological Inquiry in Service to Indigenous Futurity Joseph P. Gone
• Chapter 15. Participatory Action Research as Movement Toward Radical Relationality, Epistemic Justice, and Transformative Intervention: A Multivocal Reflection Urmitapa Dutta, Jesica Siham Fernández, Anne Galletta, and Regina Day Langhout

Part III. Sampling Across People and Time

• Chapter 16. Introduction to Survey Sampling Roger Tourangeau and Ting Yan
• Chapter 17. Epidemiology Rumi Kato Price and Heidi H. Tastet
• Chapter 18. Collecting Longitudinal Data: Present Issues and Future Challenges Simran K. Johal, Rohit Batra, and Emilio Ferrer
• Chapter 19. Using the Internet to Collect Data Ulf-Dietrich Reips

Part IV. Building and Testing Models

• Chapter 20. Statistical Mediation Analysis David P. MacKinnon, Jeewon Cheong, Angela G. Pirlott, and Heather L. Smyth
• Chapter 21. Structural Equation Modeling with Latent Variables Rick H. Hoyle and Nisha C. Gottfredson
• Chapter 22. Mathematical Psychology Parker Smith, Yanjun Liu, James T. Townsend, and Trisha Van Zandt
• Chapter 23. Computational Modeling Adele Diederich
• Chapter 24. Fundamentals of Bootstrapping and Monte Carlo Methods William Howard Beasley, Patrick O'Keefe, and Joseph Lee Rodgers
• Chapter 25. Designing Simulation Studies Xitao Fan
• Chapter 26. Bayesian Modeling for Psychologists: An Applied Approach Fred M. Feinberg and Richard Gonzalez

Part V. Designs Involving Experimental Manipulations

• Chapter 27. Randomized Designs in Psychological Research Larry Christensen, Lisa A. Turner, and R. Burke Johnson
• Chapter 28. Nonequivalent Comparison Group Designs Henry May and Zachary K. Collier
• Chapter 29. Regression Discontinuity Designs Charles S. Reichardt and Gary T. Henry
• Chapter 30. Treatment Validity for Intervention Studies Dianne L. Chambless and Steven D. Hollon
• Chapter 31. Translational Research Michael T. Bardo, Christopher Cappelli, and Mary Ann Pentz
• Chapter 32. Program Evaluation: Outcomes and Costs of Putting Psychology to Work Brian T. Yates

Part VI. Quantitative Research Designs Involving Single Participants or Units

• Chapter 33. Single-Case Experimental Design John M. Ferron, Megan Kirby, and Lodi Lipien
• Chapter 34. Time Series Designs Bradley J. Bartos, Richard McCleary, and David McDowall

Part VII. Designs in Neuropsychology and Biological Psychology

• Chapter 35. Case Studies in Neuropsychology Randi C. Martin, Simon Fischer-Baum, and Corinne M. Pettigrew
• Chapter 36. Group Studies in Experimental Neuropsychology Avinash R Vaidya, Maia Pujara, and Lesley K. Fellows
• Chapter 37. Genetic Methods in Psychology Terrell A. Hicks, Daniel Bustamante, Karestan C. Koenen, Nicole R. Nugent, and Ananda B. Amstadter
• Chapter 38. Human Genetic Epidemiology Floris Huider, Lannie Ligthart, Yuri Milaneschi, Brenda W. J. H. Penninx, and Dorret I. Boomsma

Volume 3. Data Analysis and Research Publication

Part I. Quantitative Data Analysis

• Chapter 1. Methods for Dealing With Bad Data and Inadequate Models: Distributions, Linear Models, and Beyond Rand R. Wilcox and Guillaume A. Rousselet
• Chapter 2. Maximum Likelihood and Multiple Imputation Missing Data Handling: How They Work, and How to Make Them Work in Practice Timothy Hayes and Craig K. Enders
• Chapter 3. Exploratory Data Analysis Paul F. Velleman and David C. Hoaglin
• Chapter 4. Graphic Displays of Data Leland Wilkinson
• Chapter 5. Estimating and Visualizing Interactions in Moderated Multiple Regression Connor J. McCabe and Kevin M. King
• Chapter 6. Effect Size Estimation Michael Borenstein
• Chapter 7. Measures of Clinically Significant Change Russell J. Bailey, Benjamin M. Ogles, and Michael J. Lambert
• Chapter 8. Analysis of Variance and the General Linear Model James Jaccard and Ai Bo
• Chapter 9. Generalized Linear Models David Rindskopf
• Chapter 10. Multilevel Modeling for Psychologists John B. Nezlek
• Chapter 11. Longitudinal Data Analysis Andrew K. Littlefield
• Chapter 12. Event History Analysis Fetene B. Tekle and Jeroen K. Vermunt
• Chapter 13. Latent State-Trait Models Rolf Steyer, Christian Geiser, and Christiane Loß​nitzer
• Chapter 14. Latent Variable Modeling of Continuous Growth David A. Cole, Jeffrey A. Ciesla, and Qimin Liu
• Chapter 15. Dynamical Systems and Differential Equation Models of Change Steven M. Boker and Robert G. Moulder
• Chapter 16. A Multivariate Growth Curve Model for Three-Level Data Patrick J. Curran, Chris L. Strauss, Ethan M. McCormick, and James S. McGinley
• Chapter 17. Exploratory Factor Analysis and Confirmatory Factor Analysis Keith F. Widaman and Jonathan Lee Helm
• Chapter 18. Latent Class and Latent Profile Models Brian P. Flaherty, Liying Wang, and Cara J. Kiff
• Chapter 19. Decision Trees and Ensemble Methods in the Behavioral Sciences Kevin J. Grimm, Ross Jacobucci, and John J. McArdle
• Chapter 20. Using the Social Relations Model to Understand Interpersonal Perception and Behavior P. Niels Christensen, Deborah A. Kashy, and Katelin E. Leahy
• Chapter 21. Dyadic Data Analysis Richard Gonzalez and Dale Griffin
• Chapter 22. The Data of Others: New and Old Faces of Archival Research Sophie Pychlau and David T. Wagner
• Chapter 23. Social Network Analysis in Psychology: Recent Breakthroughs in Methods and Theories Wei Wang, Tobias Stark, James D. Westaby, Adam K. Parr, and Daniel A. Newman
• Chapter 24. Meta-Analysis Jeffrey C. Valentine, Therese D. Pigott, and Joseph Morris

Part II. Publishing and the Publication Process

• Chapter 25. Research Data Management and Sharing Katherine G. Akers and John A. Borghi
• Chapter 26. Questionable Practices in Statistical Analysis Rex B. Kline
• Chapter 27. Ethical Issues in Manuscript Preparation and Authorship Jennifer Crocker

Harris Cooper, PhD, is the Hugo L. Blomquist professor, emeritus, in the Department of Psychology and Neuroscience at Duke University. His research interests concern research synthesis and research methodology, and he also studies the application of social and developmental psychology to education policy. His book Research Synthesis and Meta-Analysis: A Step-by-Step Approach (2017) is in its fifth edition. He is the coeditor of the Handbook of Research Synthesis and Meta-Analysis (3 rd ed. 2019).

In 2007, Dr. Cooper was the recipient of the Frederick Mosteller Award for Contributions to Research Synthesis Methodology, and in 2008 he received the Ingram Olkin Award for Distinguished Lifetime Contribution to Research Synthesis from the Society for Research Synthesis Methodology.

He served as the chair of the Department of Psychology and Neuroscience at Duke University from 2009 to 2014, and from 2017 to 2018 he served as the dean of social science at Duke. Dr. Cooper chaired the first APA committee that developed guidelines for information about research that should be included in manuscripts submitted to APA journals. He currently serves as the editor of American Psychologist, the flagship journal of APA.

Marc N. Coutanche, PhD, is an associate professor of psychology and research scientist in the Learning Research and Development Center at the University of Pittsburgh. Dr. Coutanche directs a program of cognitive neuroscience research and develops and tests new computational techniques to identify and understand the neural information present within neuroimaging data.

His work has been funded by the National Institutes of Health, National Science Foundation, American Psychological Foundation, and other organizations, and he has published in a variety of journals.

Dr. Coutanche received his PhD from the University of Pennsylvania, and conducted postdoctoral training at Yale University. He received a Howard Hughes Medical Institute International Student Research Fellowship and Ruth L. Kirschstein Postdoctoral National Research Service Award, and was named a 2019 Rising Star by the Association for Psychological Science.

Linda M. McMullen, PhD, is professor emerita of psychology at the University of Saskatchewan, Canada. Over her career, she has contributed to the development of qualitative inquiry in psychology through teaching, curriculum development, and pedagogical scholarship; original research; and service to the qualitative research community.

Dr. McMullen introduced qualitative inquiry into both the graduate and undergraduate curriculum in her home department, taught courses at both levels for many years, and has published articles, coedited special issues, and written a book ( Essentials of Discursive Psychology ) that is part of APA’s series on qualitative methodologies, among other works. She has been engaged with building the Society for Qualitative Inquiry in Psychology (SQIP; a section of Division 5 of the APA) into a vibrant scholarly society since its earliest days, and took on many leadership roles while working as a university professor.

Dr. McMullen’s contributions have been recognized by Division 5 of the APA, the Canadian Psychological Association, and the Saskatchewan Psychological Association.

Abigail Panter, PhD, is the senior associate dean for undergraduate education and a professor of psychology in the L. L. Thurstone Psychometric Laboratory at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She is past president of APA’s Division 5, Quantitative and Qualitative Methods.

As a quantitative psychologist, she develops instruments, research designs and data-analytic strategies for applied research questions in higher education, personality, and health. She serves as a program evaluator for UNC’s Chancellor’s Science Scholars Program, and was also principal investigator for The Finish Line Project, a $3 million grant from the U.S. Department of Education that systematically investigated new supports and academic initiatives, especially for first-generation college students.

Her books include the  APA Dictionary of Statistics and Research Methods  (2014), the APA Handbook of Research Methods in Psychology  (first edition; 2012), the Handbook of Ethics in Quantitative Methodology  (2011), and the SAGE Handbook of Methods in Social Psychology (2004), among others.

David Rindskopf, PhD, is distinguished professor at the City University of New York Graduate Center, specializing in research methodology and statistics. His main interests are in Bayesian statistics, causal inference, categorical data analysis, meta-analysis, and latent variable models.

He is a fellow of the American Statistical Association and the American Educational Research Association, and is past president of the Society of Multivariate Experimental Psychology and the New York Chapter of the American Statistical Association.

Kenneth J. Sher, PhD, is chancellor’s professor and curators’ distinguished professor of psychological sciences, emeritus, at the University of Missouri. He received his PhD in clinical psychology from Indiana University (1980) and his clinical internship training at Brown University (1981).

His primary areas of research focus on etiological processes in the development of alcohol dependence, factors that affect the course of drinking and alcohol use disorders throughout adulthood, longitudinal research methodology, psychiatric comorbidity, and nosology. At the University of Missouri he directed the predoctoral and postdoctoral training program in alcohol studies, and his research has been continually funded by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism for more than 35 years.

Dr. Sher’s research contributions have been recognized by professional societies including the Research Society on Alcoholism and APA, and throughout his career, he has been heavily involved in service to professional societies and scholarly publications.

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