CPSY 102 Ryerson University Psychological Test Issues Discussion From the attached document, I need this part completed in about 400 words.Apply two aspect | Course Hero

CPSY 102 Ryerson University Psychological Test Issues Discussion From the attached document, I need this part completed in about 400 words.Apply two aspects of research methods to your selected scenario. When you identify flaws in the research methodology in the scenario, provide a comprehensive explanation of the flaw and also say what would need to be done to improve the research methodology in the scenario. WRITTEN ASSIGNMENT (23% of final grade)
Summer 2020 – DUE July 15th, at midnight
The purpose of the written assignment is to extend your scientific thinking about
psychological issues, both in terms of the principles of scientific thinking and also
in terms of whether current claims are consistent or inconsistent with previous
research in psychology. It’s highly likely you have come across claims and ideas
regarding human behavior before, but perhaps not stopped to fully analyze
whether these claims and ideas are scientific, and whether they are supported by
good quality evidence. We would also like you to demonstrate an awareness of
various issues to do with research methods. As guiding principles, Lilienfeld et al.
(p.30-35 in the 3rd edition, p. 22- 27 in the 2nd edition, or p. 37-43 in the 1st
edition) have set out some principles of scientific thinking, and we will talk about
these principles in class. The six guiding principles are:
1) Ruling out rival hypotheses: Findings consistent with several different
hypotheses need additional research to decide which hypothesis is best
supported. When looking at a pattern of results that has been reported, it is
important to ask “are there any alternative hypotheses that could explain this
pattern of data?” The rival hypotheses that are most important to rule out are
those that could also explain the specific results that have been described. It is
useful to consider how we could attempt to rule out these alternative hypotheses.
2) Correlation vs. causation: An association between two things does not imply
a cause and effect relationship. If a pattern of results was produced simply by
measuring two different things and comparing them, we cannot say anything
definitive about whether one of these things caused the other. It’s always
important to ask whether the causal connection that is claimed or implied (e.g. A
causes B) could be reversed (i.e. B causes A) or whether a third variable could
explain the relationship (i.e. C causes A and B to go together).
3) Falsifiability: Claims must be capable of being disproved. In other words, we
should be able to think of a way to test whether or not a claim is true. If the claim
is made in such a way that there’s no good way to test it, the claim is not really
scientific.
4) Replicability: Findings must be capable of being duplicated following the
same methodology. In addition, the most reliable claims are those that have
converging evidence for them. We can only really be confident in a claim if it has
been tested in multiple different ways and all of them point to the same effect.
5) Extraordinary claims: Science is, for the most part, a cumulative process,
where new claims represent small advances over older ones. A claim that
contradicts what we already know, or that seems to promise radical new benefits,
must have a lot of evidence to back it up. The bigger the claim, the more
evidence must be provided.
6) Parsimony (a.k.a. Occam’s razor): If two hypotheses explain a phenomenon
equally well, select the simpler one. The simpler one is not necessarily correct,
but we shouldn’t make our explanations more complicated than necessary.
In addition, Lilienfeld et al. have outlined some warning signs related to
pseudoscientific claims (see p. 22-24 in the 3rd edition, or p.14-15 in the 2nd
edition):
1) Overreliance on anecdotes: Testimonials from others can be hard to verify,
hard to generalize and fail to inform us about cause-and-effect relationships. In
general, statements that are backed up with data gathered from a study are to be
preferred over statements that reflect the opinion of just a single person. Any
single person’s observations may be based on an unrepresentative sample and
may be influenced by biases (including a social desirability bias or biases in
memory).
2) Meaningless psychobabble: Technical jargon and scientific-sounding words
can sound convincing but be essentially meaningless. We should be wary of
claims that rely on confusing terminology.
3) Talk of ‘proof’ instead of ‘evidence’: Science provides evidence that either
supports or refutes certain ideas we have about the world. But ‘proving’ an idea is
almost impossible because future research may show us that our existing ideas
are incorrect, or at least only partially true.
4) Exaggerated claims: when a claim makes big promises or implies a huge
shift in how the world works, how we think, etc. Accepting the claim would mean
that a lot of what we think to be true would actually be false (the claim contradicts
what we know about the world).
For your assignment, I would like you to read the research description
presented later in this document and…
a) analyze the claims being made according to 2 of the above 6 principles
of scientific thinking. It may be the case that the research does a good job of
following some of these 6 scientific principles, but does not do a good job of
following others. If you think the research does a good job of following one of the
principles that you have chosen to write about (e.g. you think it does a good job
in ruling our rival hypotheses), provide a detailed response as to why you think
that. If you think the research does not do a good job of following one of the
principles (e.g. it fails to consider rival hypotheses), please provide a
comprehensive answer and say what would need to be done to make sure the
research follows the principle (e.g. what the rival hypotheses might be and how
they might be ruled out). You will probably find that you have more interesting
material to write about if you try to look for the ways that the research fails to
follow a scientific principle, than if you look for the ways it succeeds. In other
words, try to find what the researcher did wrong rather than what they did right.
The research description has been specially created so that it fails to abide by
some – but not all – of these scientific principles.
b) analyze the claims according to 1 of the above 3 warning signs related to
pseudoscientific claims. The research descriptions also contain one (or more)
of the warning signs of pseudoscience. So pick one of the three warning signs
from the list and discuss how it applies to the research. You should discuss the
warning sign in general (e.g. why it is not appropriate to rely on anecdotal
evidence when making claims) and how it applies to the specific research that is
being described (e.g. what anecdotes are mentioned in the research description
and why they are problematic).
c) analyze the research scenario and the claims it makes in relation to 2
different aspects of the research methods discussed in class or in
Lilienfeld et al. (2017) in Chapter 2. In the lecture and textbook, a number of
other issues related to research methods have been discussed. Below are some
examples of things you might look for in the scenarios. Remember though that
not every point will relate to every scenario and you may even find other
weaknesses in research design that are not listed below:
. (1) Reactivity – refers to the often-social nature of data collection in
psychology and how the act of observation might impact the data. In other
words, is it possible that the participants in the study changed their
behaviour because they knew that they were being observed? If
participants react to being observed, then researchers may no longer be
observing the kind of behaviour that they really wanted to observe.
.
. (2) Social desirability bias – this refers to the possibility that people may not
always tell the truth when asked questions, or may attempt to improve their
performance on a task to impress the experimenter. In other words, is it
possible that participants in the scenario gave untruthful answers in
response to questions in order to look good? Alternatively, do you think
participants in a study may have tried extra hard at something in order to
impress the experimenter? If so, perhaps the experimenters will obtain
results that won’t reflect people’s behaviour outside of their specific study.
. (3) Unrepresentative or biased sample – this refers to the possibility that the
sample of participants in the scenario may not reflect the full range of
people about whom we are interested in making conclusions (i.e. the
population). In other words, is it possible that the researchers in the
scenario studied only a small and biased sample of people? If so, try to
think about how the biased sample may have affected the results that the
researchers found.
.
. (4) Confounding variables – when conducting an experiment, a confounding
variable is something that systematically differs between the experimental
and control groups, which confounds (or confuses) our interpretation of the
study. In other words, the presence of a confounding variable means that
we can’t be sure whether the independent variable (the thing we
deliberately manipulated between the experimental and control groups) or
the confounding variable (something that also varies between the
experimental and control groups, but which we did not mean to vary) is
responsible for the results of the study. If the scenario describes an
experiment, does that experiment contain a confounding variable? If it
does, could the confounding variable be an alternative explanation for the
results of the study?
.
. (5) Lack of a control group – remember that in an experiment, we create an
experimental group for whom we have manipulated an independent
variable (e.g. we increase the amount of violent TV a group of children
watches) to try to determine the effect of the independent variable on the
dependent variable (e. g. look to see if watching more violent TV increases
aggression in this group of children). However, we also need to study a
control group for whom the independent variable has not been
manipulated (in this case, a group of children who do not watch more
violent TV than usual). It is the comparison of the experimental group with
the control group that tells us the effect of the manipulation of the
independent variable.
.
. (6) Validity of the measures – this refers to the idea that even though we
might have a measure that is highly reliable (i.e., a set of weighing scales)
this measure would be inappropriate for measuring certain psychological
characteristics (for example, intelligence or perfectionism). The degree of
validity then is the degree to which the measure we are using has some
relationship with the thing we are trying to measure.
.
. (7) Ethics – There are many issues surrounding ethics and the study of human
(and animal) behavior. One of the key features is to safe-guard the wellbeing and dignity of the individuals taking part in the investigation. This
includes making sure the individual has the opportunity to provide
voluntary informed consent, has the right to withdraw from the investigation
and is fully debriefed as to the nature and purpose of the investigation after
data collection.
Apply two aspects of research methods to your selected scenario. When you
identify flaws in the research methodology in the scenario, provide a
comprehensive explanation of the flaw and also say what would need to be done
to improve the research methodology in the scenario.
WRITTEN ASSIGNMENT MARKING GUIDE
For each scientific principle and each aspect of the research methods that you
choose to write about, give it a heading and write just a single paragraph about it.
You should allocate approximately 150-200 words to each of the 2 scientific
principles, 150-200 words for the warning sign, and another 150-200 words to
each of the aspects of research methods (there is no need for a specific
introduction or conclusion in this paper). So, your written assignment should be
somewhere between 750 and 1000 words long in total (but please adhere to the
max word count for each section). Each scientific paragraph you write will be
marked out of 4 marks, and so the written assignment will be out of 20 marks.
We will use the following criteria:
1. SCIENTIFIC PRINCIPLES
(2 scientific principles, approximately 300 – 400 words)
0 mark
1 mark
2 marks
3 marks
4 marks
8 MARKS
– no answer or wholly inappropriate answer
– significant misunderstanding or inappropriate application of principle
– fair application of principle to scenario, but several omissions
– good application of principle to scenario, with few omissions
– comprehensive discussion of principle as applied to scenario
2. PSEUDOSCIENTIFIC CLAIM
(1 pseudoscientific claim, approximately 150 – 200 words)
0 mark
1 mark
2 marks
3 marks
4 marks
4 MARKS
– no answer or wholly inappropriate answer
– significant misunderstanding or inappropriate application of principle
– fair application of principle to scenario, but several omissions
– good application of principle to scenario, with few omissions
– comprehensive discussion of principle as applied to scenario
3. RESEARCH METHODS
8 MARKS
(2 aspects of research methods, approximately 300 – 400 words)
0 mark
1 mark
2 marks
3 marks
4 marks
– no answer or wholly inappropriate answer
– significant misunderstanding or inappropriate application of principle
– fair application of principle to scenario, but several omissions
– good application of principle to scenario, with few omissions
– comprehensive discussion of principle as applied to scenario
TOTAL: 20 MARKS
FORMATTING AND SUBMISSION
–
–
Please include a cover sheet with your name, student number, date,
instructor’s name and course code.
Please do not submit a paper copy or email your assignment to me
Use headings to name each scientific principle, warning sign, and
research methods that you choose (the headings do not count towards
the word count)
Full sentences and paragraphs must be used, bullet form is not
acceptable.
Please stay within the word limit of each section (I will have to stop
marking any section that is 10% over the word limit)
Font: Times New Roman, 12 pt Font, double spaced
It will be good practice for you to include a reference list in APA format
at the end of the paper (see below) but there are no marks assigned
for this.
For this assignment, the only sources you should consult are our class
lectures/notes and the course textbook. If you would like to cite the class notes in
the text of your assignment in APA format, write something like the following:
“As defined in class (Vahedi, 2020), falsifiability refers to whether or not a
claim can be tested.”
The reference for the class material at the end of your assignment should
look something like this:
Vahedi, Z. (2020, July). Research Methods. Psychology 102: Introduction
to Psychology I. Lecture conducted from Ryerson University, Toronto, ON.
If you would like to cite the textbook in the text of your assignment in APA format,
write something like the following:
“Lilienfeld et al. (2017) tell us that anecdotes can be misleading in the
following ways.”
The reference for the textbook at the end of your assignment should look
something like this:
Lilienfeld, S.O., Lynn, S.J., Namy, L.L., Woolf, N.J., Cramer, K.M. &
Schmaltz, R. (2017). Psychology: From inquiry to understanding. (3rd ed.).
Toronto, ON: Pearson.
All that said, you (really) only need to cite these sources for this assignment.
Also, please write this whole assignment in your own words (in other words,
PLEASE DO NOT PLAGIARIZE!). Do not use any direct quotes for this
assignment.
SUBMISSION
– Save your assignment as a .doc file
– Assignments are to be submitted via D2L before 11.59pm on the due
date (July 15th)
– Please see the course outline for details of late submission policy (10%
per day)
– Retain your electronic receipt of submission in case of dispute
GOOD LUCK!
SCENARIO
Catching Fire: How to improve your Instagram picture
It’s Saturday night and you decide to upload a new picture on Instagram. After spending
an hour deciding on which selfie to post, you select one that is clearly superior to the
rest of the fifty or so selfies that you had taken. You post the picture thinking that you
will get over a hundred likes at least from your Instagram followers in the next half hour,
but you are soon proven wrong when your picture only receives a measly 15 likes.
Did I post the wrong picture? How could I possibly know which selfie would result in me
getting the most likes? A recent study done by researchers at Ohio University have
determined a procedure that will ensure that whatever selfie you post, you will receive
the maximum number of likes!
Dr. Haymitch Abernathy conducted an experiment and stated: “Ensuring the maximum
number of likes and comments on a picture simply comes down to perception. If you
increase the specificity of photons hitting your viewers’ retinas, you can increase the
likelihood of getting a like! This is done by manipulating the photons in the picture,
which leads to the release of oxytocin by the hypothalamus, therefore increasing your
Instagram followers’ positive feelings towards your photo.” This unique procedure has
originated from Dr. Abernathy’s laboratory, where his research team has spent the last
six months fine-tuning a filter that will increase the specificity of photons, which he calls
a “scattered-light filter.”
The researchers conducted an experiment to determine what type of selfie led to the
most number of likes. Dr. Abernathy recruited 30 females from his Introductory
Psychology class who were between the ages of 18 and 22. Participants in the study
were brought into the lab at Ohio University, and they had their photos taken using a
scattered-light filter on a high-quality, digital camera. They were then asked to post their
picture whenever they wanted on their Instagram account for a 24 hour period and keep
track of how many likes and comments they received in that time. Participants were also
asked to report how quickly – in comparison to other pictures they posted – they
received likes and comments on their photo.
The findings were astounding! The pictures taken using the scattered-light filter on the
digital camera resulted in almost twice the number of comments and likes than each of
the participants’ last uploaded selfie. Dr. Abernathy explains that this result can be
explained by the fact that when light waves have been scattered, they have deeper
penetration into a viewer’s eyeball, and stimulate the retina more specifically. This
increase in specificity results in an increase in positive perception, and an increased
likelihood of liking a picture. Sarah, one of the participants in the study, stated that “I’ve
never received so many likes and comments on a picture, and so rapidly as well! I’m
definitely going to purchase one of these filters to use from now on!”
Dr. Abernathy says that this study proves that by manipulating the photon specificity of
the light being projected by your picture, you can ensure that you receive the maximum
number of likes and comments on your Instagram photos.

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