Conducting Research in Psychology: Measuring the Weight of Smoke

Conducting Research in Psychology: Measuring the Weight of Smoke provides students an engaging introduction to psychological research by employing humor, stories, and hands-on activities. Through its methodology exercises, learners are encouraged to use their intuition to understand research methods and apply basic research principles to novel problems. Authors Brett W. Pelham and Hart Blanton integrate cutting-edge topics, including implicit biases, measurement controversies, online data collection, and new tools for determining the replicability of a set of research findings. The Fifth Edition broadens its coverage of methodologies to reflect the types of research now conducted by psychologists. Two new chapters accommodate the needs of instructors who incorporate student research projects into their courses.

Table of Contents:
Preface About the Authors CHAPTER 1. How Do We Know? Introduction: What This Text Is About A Few Quick Tips for Using This Text Preamble for Chapter 1 A Brief History of Human Knowledge The Four Canons of Science Four Ways of Knowing About the World Summary Study Questions Notes CHAPTER 2. How Do We Find Out? The Logic, Art, and Ethics of Scientific Discovery The Logic of Scientific Discovery The Art of Scientific Discovery The Ethics of Scientific Discovery Summary Study Questions Notes CHAPTER 3. In a Nutshell: An Overview of Psychological Research Methods A Tale of Two Validities Three Requirements for Establishing Causality Experiments: Fulfilling Mill’s Requirements Passive Observational (Nonexperimental) Research Methods Trade-Offs Between Internal and External Validity GAGES: The “Big Five” of Worrisome Confounds External Validity and the OOPS! Heuristic Oops! He Did It Again: Maximizing External Validity in the Lab Gauging GAGES in Archival Studies of Social Cognition Summary Study Questions CHAPTER 4. Making It Happen: A Hands-On Guide to a First Research Project Everybody Dance Now Step 1: Hypothesis Generation Step 2: Operationalization (Design) Step 3: Permission Step 4: Execution (Data Collection) Step 5: Calculation (Data Analysis) Step 6: Communication Summary Study Questions Notes CHAPTER 5. Moving From Fact to Truth: Validity, Reliability, and Measurement Three Strange Stories Validity Reliability Reliability, Validity, and the “More Is Better” Rule Measurement Scales Summary Study Questions CHAPTER 6. Moving From Notions to Numbers: Psychological Measurement Converting Notions to Numbers: The Two Major Challenges The Response Translation Phase Putting It All Together: The EGWA Scale From Writing Questions to Creating Scales Summary Study Questions CHAPTER 7. How Do We Misinterpret? Common Threats to Validity One Strange and Lucrative Story People Are Different People Change The Process of Studying People Changes People Moving From Three Threats to Two: Confounds and Artifacts Summary Study Questions Note CHAPTER 8. Nonexperimental Research Designs Describing the World of a Single Participant: Case Studies Describing the State of the World at Large: Single-Variable Research Describing Associations: Multiple-Variable Research Archival Research Observational Research Confounds Can Be Measured, Too! Summary Study Questions Notes CHAPTER 9. Experience Carefully Planned: Experimental Research Designs A Wonderful Method A Brief History of True Experiments Strengths of True Experiments Are True Experiments Realistic? Is There a Recipe for Experimental Realism? Trade-Offs Between Internal and External Validity The “How-Tos” of Laboratory Studies Summary Study Questions Notes CHAPTER 10. Experience Carefully Exploited: Quasi-Experimental Research Designs One Very Old Story Why Quasi-Experiments? Kinds of Quasi-Experiments Comparability Patched-Up Designs When True Experiments and Quasi-Experiments Collide Summary Study Questions Notes CHAPTER 11. Choosing the Right Research Design One Obscure Movie One-Way Designs Factorial Designs Within-Subjects Designs Mixed-Model Designs Summary Study Questions Notes CHAPTER 12. A Brief Course in Statistics How Numbers and Language Revolutionized Human History Descriptive Statistics Inferential Statistics Things That Go Bump in the Light: Factors That Influence the Results of Significance Tests The Changing State of the Art: Alternate Perspectives on Statistical Hypothesis Testing Summary Study Questions Notes CHAPTER 13. Telling the World About It The Hourglass Approach to Empirical Research Papers Some Rules to Writing Research Papers How to Give a Good Talk in Psychology (by Daniel T. Gilbert) Have a Plan Tell the Plan Start at the Beginning Be Painfully Clear Talk About One Interesting Thing Take Charge of the Interaction End at the End Summary Study Questions Appendix 1: Hands-On Activities Hands-On Activity 1: Galileo’s Dice Hands-On Activity 2: Regression Toward the Mean Hands-On Activity 3: A Double-Blind Taste Test With Popular Colas Hands-On Activity 4: The Stroop Interference Effect Appendix 2: Methodology Exercises Methodology Exercise 1: Partial Correlation Methodology Exercise 2: Random Assignment Methodology Exercise 3: Interactions Methodology Exercise 4: Repeated Measures Designs Questions Appendix 3: Putting Your Knowledge to Work: 25 Methodology Problems 1. In Search of a Delicious, Low-Fat TV Show 2. Let’s Get Supernatural 3. Fly Away Home 4. Impressive Pickup Lines 5. Clever Who? 6. Life Sucks and So You Die 7. On the Drawbacks of Liking Yourself 8. The Early Bird Gets the Win? 9. Testosterone Makes Better Dive-Bombers 10. Working Your Fingers to the Dean’s List 11. To Thine Own Selves Be True 12. A Rosy Mood by Any Other Name? 13. EPSCOR: Do Fractions Have Denominators? 14. Sampling Student Opinion 15. Are You the Favorite Person of Anybody? 16. He May Be Small but He’s Slow 17. Everyone’s a Winner 18. Can a Couple of Beers Really Go Straight to Your Belly? 19. What’s in a Name? 20. Are You Threatening Me? 21.Genes, Schmenes 22. Do Car Thieves Really Love Old Hondas? 23. An Unbiased Assessment? 24. Mary, Mary, Quite the Centenarian? 25. Register on Time (The 11:59 Initiative) Appendix 4: An Example of an APA-Style Research Paper: Ethnicity and the Risk of Unwarranted Cesarean Birth in the United States Glossary References Name Index Subject Index

About the Author :
Brett Pelham grew up as the second of six children near the small town of Rossville, Georgia. Brett received his B.S. from Berry College in 1983 and received his Ph.D. from the University of Texas at Austin in 1989. He began thinking about this book while teaching statistics at UCLA but got serious about doing so while teaching statistics at UB (in Buffalo, NY). After leaving UB, Brett worked for a year as a visiting professor in marketing at Georgetown University. He was then lucky enough to work for about two years as a senior research analyst at Gallup. This was followed by two not-so-lucky years as a Program Director at the National Science Foundation. At the time of this writing (in January 2012) Brett was extremely excited to have just taken a position promoting graduate and postgraduate education in the Education Directorate at the American Psychological Association. With apologies to Lenny Bruce, you can see that Brett has had some difficulties holding down a regular job recently. The bulk of his research focuses on automatic social judgment and self-evaluation. Over the past two decades, he has taught courses in social psychology, research methods, statistics, social cognition, and the self-concept. In his spare time, he enjoys juggling, sculpting, listening to alternative rock music, cooking, and traveling. His two favorite activities while completing this textbook (in late 2011) were spending time with his 3-year-old daughter Brooklyn and his 8-year-old son Lincoln. Along with his wife LJ Pelham, Brett is co-inventor of the recently released card game PRIME. Along with his son Lincoln, he is co-inventor of the soon-to-be-released card game Cliff-Hanger. Along with his daughter Brooklyn, he is co-inventor of the never-to-be-released card game It’s a Hat. You Like It? His most recent writing project is a novel tentatively entitled Elvis 2.0, which focuses on scientific and religious problems associated with the apparent resurrection of Elvis Presley.