The following notes pertain to lecture material that I covered for Chap 12, 1, and 3.

Please
note that I don’t lecture on Chap 2 although you are responsible for that chapter for Test 3.
That chapter is very straightforward and easy to understand.

Lecture material - SMALL N DESIGNS (CHAP 12)

- sometimes called “single-subject designs” because the data for each subjects is considered
independently (data is not averaged over a large number of subjects)
Designs that we’re discussing are used most often in clinical settings to see if treatment was effective for
a single individual (studies with large n’s could obscure effectiveness).
Larger N designs might lack “individual subject validity”.
Because there are no control groups, behavior must be shown to change as a result of the treatment used.

3 required elements:
a) operationally define the target behavior
b) establish a baseline of responding before treatment is introduced (the behavior is usually measured in
terms of “frequency” or “rate of response”)
c) introduce treatment and continue monitoring the behavior

Simplest Single -Subject Design

A(baseline) -B (treatment) design
-weak design because change might be the result of some other confound such as history or maturation,
and not to the treatment

Withdrawal (or Reversal) Design

-reduces the chance that confounding variables are responsible for the observed behavior change
-simplest withdrawal design is A (baseline) – B (treatment) – A (withdrawal of treatment)
-if behavior changes correlate with the introduction and removal of treatment, it’s likely that it’s the
treatment producing the change.

An even better withdrawal design is;

A (baseline) – B (treatment) – A (withdrawal of treatment) – B (treatment))
-it ends with the treatment (on a “positive note) rather than the withdrawal of treatment, and it allows
treatment to be tested twice

Problem:
a) withdrawal can be unethical if you are removing a treatment that is effective
b) sometimes a withdrawal design isn’t feasible (like when the treatment involves the teaching of a skill
and the skill remains learned even after the treatment is withdrawn). In other words, the behavior will not
return to baseline after the treatment is withdrawn (and you shouldn’t expect it to).
-Solution – use Multiple-Baseline Design
Multiple-Baseline Design
-baseline measures are established and then treatment is introduced at different times. Unlike the ABAB
design, treatment is not withdrawn.
Baseline can be established for:
a) the same behavior in two or more subjects
b) two or more different behaviors in the same subject
c) the same behavior in the same subject but in two or more different settings.

So the effectiveness of the treatment is inferred from the fact that as treatment is introduced at different
times, the behavior responds only at that.. On the other hand, if 2 or more behaviors change after the
treatment is put into effect for the first behavior only, then it’s difficult to attribute the changes directly to
the treatment (changes are probably due to history, maturation or other confounds) (see Figure 12.12, pg
359).

Common Characteristics of Multiple-Baseline designs

a) study begins with establishing baselines for each behavior (or person or setting)
b) the treatment for each begins at different times
c) you can usually identify this type of design by several graphs being stacked of top of each other, with a
dotted line moving down from one graph to another in a stepwise manner to separate the different phases.

Interpretation Problem:
Sometimes changes in a behavior that was treated in one setting generalize to other settings (ie, you
may treat a behavior in a given setting and but also observe that behavior change in other settings
BEFORE the behavior is in those other settings is treated)
Ex, you treat a kid’s aggressive behavior in the home and discover that it also changes in daycare and at
school, before it’s actually treated there. If that were to happen, you don’t know whether it’s because
your treatment was “super-effective” and automatically generalized to other settings or whether some
factor other than the treatment was responsible for the unexpected change.

A-A1-B-A1-B Design (not in your text)

This is a type of design to determine whether a drug effect is real and not just due to a placebo.
A= normal baseline
A1= second baseline where subject gets a placebo
B = real drug being tested
If the drug is effective you would expect behavior to be different at A and A1 than it is at B.

Changing Criterion Design (similar to shaping in operant conditioning)

-the criterion for getting a Sr+ (positive reinforcer) begins at a modest level and becomes more stringent
as the study progresses
-baseline is established and then Sr+ (treatment) is begun until some criterion is reached. Then the
criterion is made increasingly more difficult until the target behavior has been attained.
-often used to develop diet, exercise or study programs
Criticisms against single-subject designs
1) they cannot adequately test for interaction effects. Such designs do exist but they are cumbersome.
Ex – to compare 2 individual therapies (B and C) and their combination (BC), this is what you would
have to do:
A(baseline) - B – BC – B – A – B – BC – B
but because C never occurred by itself, you must do this all over again
A – C – BC – C – A – C – BC – C

2) the study might lack external validity

3) the dependent variable is mostly always “frequency” or “rate-of-response”
4) effectiveness of treatment is usually determined by visual inspection of graphed data (not statistical
analyses)
5) interpretation problems might ensue if baseline data is unstable or if certain trends in the baseline data
exist before the introduction of treatment

Lecture Notes - CHAP 1 – Scientific Thinking in Psychology

Four basic ways of arriving at our beliefs (they are all problematic except for “science”):
1) Authority- where we accept information from a source that we judge to be an expert.
2) Logic and Reason
Problem:
premise 1 – Birds can recognize babies.
premise 2 – My pet budgie is a bird.
Logical conclusion - My budgie can recognize babies.
The logic is fine but the conclusion is correct only if both premises are correct (and the first
premise might be difficult to verify and require even more logic)

3) Experience or Empiricism
-acquiring knowledge through direct experience or observation
Problem – our experiences are limited and our interpretation of events might be influenced by
“social cognitions biases”
Examples of Social Cognition Biases:
a) Belief Perseverance – tendency to hold onto a belief in the face of contrary information
b) Confirmation Bias – you “see” only those things that confirm your belief and disregard
contradictory information
c) Availability Heuristic – when we experience an unusual or memorable event and overestimate
how often it occurs. (ex – assuming flying is very unsafe because plane crashes get more media
attention than car crashes)

4) Science
- the most reliable was to develop a belief
- greatest advantage is that it’s objective
Characteristics of scientific thinking:
a) Statistical Determinism – events can be predicted but only with a probability greater than
chance; this is the position psychologists take
b) Objectivity – observations can be verified by more than one observer. In science this is
achieved by operationalizing terms and research procedures so that others can replicate the study
and presumably obtain the same results.
Psychology has not always been objective. Early methods used introspection (a form of self-
report) where subjects would perform a task and then describe their conscious experience of the
task. The problem was that this method was subjective and could not be verified by observers.
c) Data-Driven - conclusions about behavior is supported by evidence of objective information
gathered systematically (using operational definitions, reliable tools, sound methodologies)
d) Science Asks Empirical Questions
- questions that can be answered through the scientific method and are specific enough to allow
specific predictions
Ex of questions that are NOT empirical and cannot be answered through science – Is there a
God? Are people born good? Are females morally superior to men?
e) Science Produces Tentative Conclusions
-science is self-correcting
-findings are always subject to change based on future research and it’s assumed that eventually
we will get closer to the truth

Pseudoscience (fake science)

- claims about behavior are not based on the scientific method
- relies on selective anecdotal evidence (evidence from a single case that illustrates the
phenomenon in question).

Lecture Material - CHAP 3 – Developing Ideas for Research

Applied Research – research that has direct and immediate relevance to solving a “real-world”
problem
Basic Research – study a phenomenon for the sake of just learning about it. Results from this
type of research often provide the foundation for applied research. Ex – Skinner derived
important learning principles by conducting research on rats in a Skinner box. These learning
principles have since been applied to child-rearing practices, ways of enhancing learning in the
classroom etc
Translational Research – a term referring to a merging of the above two

Laboratory Research – research conducted in a lab. It allows for greater control and it’s easier
to get informed consent and to debrief subjects
Field Research – research that takes place outside of a lab setting. It more closely matches
“real-life” settings so results may be more generalizable

Experimental Realism – refers to how “involved” subjects become in the study

Mundane Realism – refers to how closely a study reflects real-life experiences and is
considered to be less important that experimental realism.

Operational Definitions – exact definitions of constructs involved in your study and precise
descriptions of the procedures you used. This allows for replication.
-A construct is a hypothetical factor that cannot be directly observed but we infer its existence.
Most psychological variables are constructs (personality traits, IQ, etc).
-A given construct could be operationalized in many different ways and we must precisely define
how we chose to operationalize the construct in our given study. For ex, anxiety could be
operationalized in terms of fidgeting, or using a rating scale for self-report, or heart rate
increases, or amount of sweating etc

Converging Operations – occurs when the results of several studies, each defining a construct
with a different operational definition, converge on the same conclusion. For ex, if you were
studying the effects of frustration (a construct) on aggression and wanted to induce frustration,
you could operationalize frustration in many different ways (deprive kinds of toys, have an
unsolvable puzzle, make someone wait in a long line-up etc). If each of these different studies
produced that same results, then this would be an example of converging operations because you
got the same result regardless of how you operationalized frustration.

Theory - A theory is a set of logically consistent statements about a behavior that best
summarizes existing observations or empirical knowledge, that provides a tentative explanation
for a behavior, and that is the basis for making a hypothesis (specific prediction about behavior).
A theory is so general and abstract that it cannot be tested directly.

Hypothesis- a specific prediction or “educated guess” about the outcome of a study. It is

deduced from the theory.
Deduction - refers to going from the general theory to the more specific hypothesis that is
logically derived from the theory.
Induction – when the results of a given study are used to either support or refute a theory. (going
from the specific to the general).

Scientific Method
Decide on which theory you’re interested in and then develop a hypothesis that is logically
derived from the theory (deduction).
Choose a method of research, conduct your study, analyze the data.
If the data supports your hypothesis, inductive support is provided for the theory.
You can never prove a theory, you can only say that your results support or confirm the theory.
If studies consistently support the theory, then confidence in the theory increases.
If the data doesn’t support the hypothesis, first check to see if there was a methodological
problem with your study that might account for the unexpected finding, and if warranted, you
could improve the study and conduct it again.
If related studies based on the same theory consistently fail to support the hypotheses, then
confidence in the theory decreases. This might lead to the theory being eventually discarded or
revised/refined.

Attributes of a Good Theory

A) Productivity – the theory advances knowledge by generating a lot of research
B) Falsification – you want support for your theory but you try to do that by falsifying it
Ex – Suppose that you want to prove that “All dogs have 4 legs.” To prove this, you would have
to find every existing dog and show that it has 4 legs (an impossibly onerous task). Instead, you
could try to falsify the theory. To do this you would only need to produce one dog that doesn’t
have 4 legs, and in doing so, you have just disproved that theory.
C) Parsimony - the theory has the minimum number of assumptions or constructs in order to
explain the behavior adequately