Caraga State University

Butuan City
2nd Sem., AY 2021-2022

Psych 110 - Abnormal Psychology

Facilitator: Ruth E. Sanchez

Unit 4.1 The Research Endeavor Part1

A. Special Challenges in the Study of Psychopathology

B. The Scientific Method
C. Ethical Issues in Research
D. Case Studies
E. Correlational Studies
F. Epidemiological Studies

INTRODUCTION

 One challenge is accurately measuring abnormal behaviors and feelings.

 Self-reports can be distorted in a number of ways, intentionally or unintentionally.
Similarly, relying on an observer's assessments of a person has its own pitfalls. The
observer's assessments can be biased by stereotypes involving gender and culture,
idiosyncratic biases, and lack of information.
 A second challenge is the difficulty of obtaining the participation of populations of interest,
such as people who are paranoid and hearing voices.
 A third challenge is that most forms of abnormality probably have multiple causes.
 Rarely can a single study accomplish so much. Instead, we usually are left with partial
answers to the question of what causes a certain disorder or symptom, and we must
piece together the partial answers from several studies to get a complete picture.

Despite these challenges, researchers have made tremendous strides in understanding many forms of
abnormality in the past 50 years or so. They have overcome many of the challenges of researching
psychopathology by using a multimethod approach, which is, using different methods to study the same
issue.

THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD

Any research project involves a basic series of steps designed to obtain and evaluate information
relevant to a problem in a systematic way. This process is often called the scientific method.

 First, researchers must select and define a problem. Then a hypothesis, or testable statement of
what we predict will happen in our study, must be formulated. Next, the method for testing the
hypothesis must be chosen and implemented. Once the data have been collected and analyzed,
the researcher draws the appropriate conclusions and documents the results in a research
report.
 DEFINING THE PROBLEM AND STATING A HYPOTHESIS

Throughout this chapter, we will examine the idea that stress causes depression. Thus, we must
state a hypothesis, or a testable prediction of what relationship we expect to find in our study.

 A hypothesis, "What kind of evidence would support the idea that stress causes depression?"
 One hypothesis, then, is that people who have recently been under stress are more
likely to be depressed than people who have not.
 The alternative to our hypothesis is that people who experience stress are not more
likely to develop depression than people who do not experience stress
 This prediction that there is no relationship between the phenomena we are
studying-in this case, stress and depression-is called the null hypothesis. Results
often support the null hypothesis instead of the researcher's primary
hypothesis.

CHOOSING AND IMPLEMENTING A METHOD

 A variable is a factor or characteristic that can vary within an individual or between

individuals.
o A dependent variable is the factor we are trying to predict in our study. In our
studies of stress and depression, we will be trying to predict depression, so
depression is our dependent variable.
o An independent variable is the factor we believe will affect the dependent variable.
In our studies, the independent variable is the amount of stress an individual has
experienced.
o Operationalization refers to the way we measure or manipulate the variables in a
study.
 Our definitions of depression and stress will influence how we measure
these variables.
 For example, if we define depression as a diagnosable depressive disorder,
then we will measure depression in terms of whether people's symptoms
meet the criteria for a depressive disorder.
 If we define depression as symptoms along the entire range of severity,
then we might measure depression as scores on a depression questionnaire.
 In measuring stress, we might assess how often a person has encountered
events that most people would consider stressful. Or we might devise a way
of manipulating or creating stress so that we can then examine people's
depression in response to stress.

ETHICAL ISSUES IN RESEARCH

A group of people called human participants committee is present in all colleges and universities to
review the procedures of studies done with humans to ensure that the benefits of the study
substantially outweigh any risks to the participants and that the risks to the participants have been
minimized.

The committees ensure rights for all participants:

 1. Understanding the study. Participants have the right to understand the nature of the research
particularly any factors that might influence their willingness to participate.
a. Individuals not capable of understanding the risks of a study, such as young children or
adults with mental impairments, must have a parent, guardian, or other responsible
adult make the judgment about their participation in the study.
2. Confidentiality. Identity and any information be held in strict confidence
3. Right to refuse or withdraw participation without suffering adverse consequences.
4. Informed consent. Usually,consent should be documented in writing. In some cases, a written
informed consent document is not used, as when participants are filling out an anonymous
survey
a. if consent could put them at risk, the researcher sometimes is allowed to obtain only
verbal consent.
5. Deception. Researchers should use deception in studies only when doing so is absolutely
essential and justified by the study's potential contributions.
6. Debriefing. At the end of the study, researchers should explain the purpose of the research and
answer participants' questions.
EVALUATNG CASE STUDIES
o Case studies have been used to understand and to make more general inferences about
the sources of psychopathology.
o Case studies are a time-honored method of research, for several reasons.
 No other method captures the uniqueness of the individual as much as a case
study.
 The nuances of an individual's life and experiences can be detailed, and the
individual's own words can be used to describe these experiences.
 Exploring the unique experiences and honoring perspectives on these
experiences are important goals for many researchers
 Case studies can be the only way to study rare problemsCase studies can be
valuable in helping generate new ideas

o Case studies have drawbacks, however.

 The first involves generalizability - the ability to apply what we have learned to
other individuals or groups.
 Case studies also suffer from a lack of objectivity on the part of both the
individuals telling their stories and the therapists or researchers listening to the
stories.
 Thus, two case studies of the same person conducted by two different
researchers may lead to different conclusions

CORRELATIONAL STUDIES

Correlational studies examine the relationship between an independent variable and a dependent
variable without manipulating either variable. There are many kinds of correlational studies.

 The most common type of correlational study is a study of two or more continuous variables. A
continuous variable is measured along a continuum.
  Anotheris a group comparison study to look at the relationship between people's membership
in a particular group and their scores on some other variable.

Both continuous variable studies and group comparison studies can be either cross-sectional - observing
people at only one point in time - or longitudinal - observing people on two or more occasions over
time.

MEASURING THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN VARIABLES

In most correlational studies, the relationship between the variables is indicated by a correlation
coefficient.

 A correlation coefficient is a statistic used to represent the relationship between variables,

usually denoted by the symbol r.
o A correlation coefficient can fall between - 1.00 and + 1.00.
 A positive correlation coefficient indicates that as values of the independent
variable increase, values of the dependent variable also increase
 A negative correlation coefficient indicates that as values of the independent
variable increase, values of the dependent variable decrease
o The magnitude (size) of a correlation is the degree to which the variables move in
tandem with each other.
 It is indicated by how close the correlation coefficient is to either + 1.00 or -1.00.
 A correlation (r) of 0 indicates no relationship between the variables
 A value of r of + 1.00 or -1.00 indicates a perfect relationship between the two
variables. The value of one variable is perfectly predicted by the value of the
other variable
 The statistical significance of a result, such as a correlation coefficient, is an index of how likely
it is that the result occurred simply by chance.
o You will often see statements in research studies such as "The result was statistically
significant at p < .05." This means that the probability (p) is less than 5 in 100 that the
result occurred only by chance.
 A high correlation between an independent and a dependent variable does not tell us that the
independent variable caused the dependent variable
o It could be that depression causes stress, or some other variable may cause both stress
and depression. This situation is called the third variable problem - the possibility that
variables not measured in a study are the real cause of the relationship between the
variables that are measured.

SELECTING A SAMPLE

A sample is a group of people taken from the population we want to study.

 A representative sample is a sample that is highly similar to the population of interest in terms
of sex, ethnicity, age, and other important variables.
o This is done by random sampling

EVALUATING CORRELATIONAL STUDIES

  One major advantage of correlational studies is that they focus on situations occurring in the
real world, rather than those manipulated in a laboratory.
o This gives them relatively good external validity, the extent to which a study's results
can be generalized to real-life phenomena.
 Longitudinal correlational studies have several advantages over cross-sectional correlational
studies.
o In longitudinal correlational studies, researchers can determine whether there are
differences between the groups before the event of interest occurs.
o Longitudinal designs also allow researchers to follow groups long enough to assess both
short-term and long-term reactions to the event.
o Longitudinal studies can be time-consuming and expensive to run but they are
producing extremely valuable data.
 The greatest disadvantage of all correlational studies is that they cannot indicate what is a cause
and what is a consequence
 Finally, all correlational studies suffer from the third variable problem.
o That is why some researchers turn to experimental studies.

EPIDEMIOLOGICAL STUDIES

Epidemiology is the study of the frequency and distribution of a disorder, or a group of disorders, in a
population.

 Epidemiological research focuses on three types of data.

o First, research may focus on the prevalence of a disorder, or the proportion of the
population that has the disorder at a given point or period in time.
o Second, it focuses to determine the incidence of a disorder, or the number of new cases
of the disorder that develop during a specified period of time.
o Third, is concerned with the risk factors for a disorder - those conditions or variables
that are associated with a higher risk of having the disorder.
 How do researchers determine the prevalence, incidence, and risk factors for a disorder?
o Epidemiological researchers first identify the population of interest and next identify a
random sample of that population
o They then use structured clinical interviews that ask specific questions of participants to
assess whether they have the symptoms that make up the disorder and the risk factors,
such as gender or socioeconomic status.

Epidemiological studies are affected by many of the same limitations as correlational studies.

 First, they cannot establish that any risk factor causes a disorder. Also, as in correlational
studies, third variables may explain the relationship between any risk factor and the rates of a
disorder.

Reference: Abnormal Psychology by Nolen-Hoeksema