RESEARCH METHODS

Ch. 2.Creative Ideas and Working Hypotheses

From Hunches to Testable Hypotheses
nyazihan@cankya.edu.tr
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When we think the
provisional nature of scientific
knowledge the idea of a cycle
of discovery and justification
is also a reminder that the
end of one study usually the
prelude to another.

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 How to formulate hypothesis?
What are the strategies and circumstances that lead to
testable hypotheses.
The stimulating interest and the curiosity
Push you to think beyond your initial ideas

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 Sources of hypothesis

Explaining paradoxical incidents in testable ways

Recognizing potential hypothesis in analogies, metaphors,etc
Identifying conflincting conclusion
Improving on older ideas
Personal Experience, Imagination & Thinking, Observation,
Scientific Theory, Previous Study, Culture.

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Researchers try to explain a paradoxial incident (a
seemingly contradictory event testable way.
For example:
The bystander helping research (Latane, Darley, 1970)
The incident that inspired this research was the report of
a brutel murder that occured in the early morning of
march 13, 1964, in Queens New York.
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 year old nurse was attacked and murdered by a man
while she was coming from work at 3 am. When they heard
her cries more than 3 dozen of neighbors came to their
windows but no one went to her aid
The researchers were struck by the paradox that even there
were many witnesses none of them called the police.
The social psychologists wondered why so many people failed
to intervene Each person might believed that someone else
would help

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They developed a concept which is called the
diffusion of responsibility and hypothesized
that the more the bystander witnesses to an
emergency, the less likely it is that any of them will
offer help.

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To test diffusion of responsibility hypothesis a series of
experiments were conducted.
In an experiment at Colombia University researhers
found that the larger the number of the students
present, the less likely any of them was to volunteer to
help in an emergency.

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In an experiment while students were making disscussion about
the problems of an Urban University, a stream of smoke began
to puff into the room.
The researchers observed that when one student was in the room
he was about twice as likely to report the emergency as when the
student was with the other students.
Instead of reporting the emergency students in a group tended
to be passive and dismiss their fears.

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A second hypothesis generating involves the use
of analogies, metaphors, figures of speech, or
other analogical thinking.
Researchers develop potential hypotheses on the
basis of these concepts.

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In a third hyptesis generating heuristic, the researcher develops
insights by trying to account for conflicting results.
A prominent case in psychology involved the work of Robert
Zajonc he proposed a hypothesis that the termed social
facilitation
The term used for to account for some conflicting published data.

Some earlier reports had indicated that performance in humans

and animals improved when a passive observers were present,
whereas other reports had showed performance becoming
poorer in the presense of others. 11
For instance in one experiment the participants were required to
learn a list of nonsense syllables either alone or in the presence of
others.
The number of trials nedeed to learn the list was the criterian
variable.
Those participants who learned the list alone was averaged more
than 9 trials; others 11 trials.
But in other experiments who performed a familiar task in groups
did better than when that performed alone.
Thus it seemed that the presence of others enhanced the
performance of some tasks but not the others.

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How could these seemingly inconsistent results be explained?
One important finding in experimental psychology is that a high drive
level causes people to give the dominant responce to a stimulus.
When the task is familiar and well learned the dominant responce is
the usually the right one.
However when the task is novel and the the correct responces are
unknown or not well learned the dominant responce will probably be
wrong.
The presence of others must inhibit the learning of new responces but
facilitate the performance of well-learned responces.
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A fourth hypotsthesis generating heuristic involves improving on
older ideas
A classic case in experimental psychology was
improvement on two other theories of conditioning.
In two popular conceptualizations were those of Russion
psychologist Ivan Pavlov and American psychologist Thorndike.
distinction between two conceptualizations opened the
new way to a long series of studies by Skinnner and others.

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 What is the potential role of serendipity

To keep your eyes, ears, and minds open will help you coming up
questions and hypothesis that are all around you.
For example clinical psychologist Leo Kanner (1943) made a discovery
while he was working with disturbed children. He noticed a striking
similarity in their behaviour. Not only did they tend to be socially
isolated but they had failed to develop appropriate language skills.
Calling this syndrome infantile autism they began to do research
on it
discovery is an example of serendipity which means lucky
discover
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 How should I define the variables?

At this point you need to think about naming and

defining your variables in which you are interested.
Describing your variables tells others how you
conceptualize it and whether you see it the same way as
they do.
Researches generally make two kinds of definitions of
variables called operational and theoretical.
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 Operational definition

O.D. identfy variables on the basis of empirical conditions (the

operations) used to measure or to manipulate the variables.
For example the O.D. of hunger might be as the degree of
stomach contractions .
A social psychologist interseted in prejudice might define it
operationally by respondents scores on attidute scale designed to
measure stereotyping and other elements of biases.

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 Theoretical definition
T.D. define variables in more abstract or more general terms,
such as defining hunger by a connection between the reported
feeling of hungary and the sensory experience of certain internal
and external cues.
The term prejudice might be discussed how the word prejudice
derived from latin praejudicium.
It means precedent or judgement based on prior decisions
In centuries it has come to mean premature judgement
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The clinical psychologist might emphasize depression as
symptoms that are associated with clinically such as
feeling of sadness or despair, sleep problems, loss of interest
in things , the inabilty to concentrate and feelings of
hopelessness and death
How do you begin your question for good operational and
theoretical definitions of the variables you want to study?
First you might look in standard references to see how
others have conceptualized those variables. Literature
search
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For a theoretical definition of
depression the instructer
recommends to the student
to read what the author of the
BDI Aoron Beck wrote (e.g.,
Beck, Rush, Shaw, Emery,
1979).

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 What identifies good theories
and working hypotheses
What a theory look like?
According to (1954) social comparison theory, people
want to know whether they are like or unlike others or better or
worse than others.
There are objective standards for many opinions and abilities to
help people decide where they stand in relation to others.
But for many other issues such as opinions about ethnic groups,
religion, sex, environmental pollution it is not easy to find an
objective criteria.
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Festinger reasoned that when no immediate objective
standard exists people attempt to evaluate their opinions
and abilities by comparing themselves to others.
He also theorized that the tendency to compare oneself
with another person will decrease as the expected
difference between onself and another increases. 23
Thus if you wanted to evaluate your opinions about the
existence of God, you would be more likely to compare
yourself with another student than a member of the clergy.
The theory also states that you will be less attracted to
groups whose members thinking is very different from yours
than to groups whose members think more as you do.

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 Working hypotheses

Karl Popper pointed out that the purpose of scientific hypotheses

is to select what the researcher will be looking for.
For instance if someone take pencil and pen, carefully
observe and write down what you have observed You will
immediately what to observe
Because an observation needs a choosen object, a definite task
and interest, a point of view, and a problem.
Scientists need hypotheses and research questions to conduct
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empirical research.
 Social comparison
Festinger hypotheses
The tendency to compare oneself with some other
specific person decreases as the difference between his
opinion and own increases

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 Scientific theories and hypotheses

1-A hypothesis is a conjectural statement

A theory is an organised set of explanatory propositions connected by
logical arguments and by explicit and implicit prior assumptions (or
presuppositions).
2-Hypotheses can be derived from a good theory and that they give
direction to researches observation.
3-A theory postulates a kind of conceptual pattern which can then serve
as a logical framework for the interpretation of the larger meaning of
our observations.
4-Finally it is true of seminal theories (those that shape or stimulate
other work) that they are constantly evolving as new findings emerge. 27
Good scientific theories are
also described as generative
which means they encourage
others to generate additional
hypotheses.

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 Good working hypotheses have
certain characteristics

First they are plausible or credible, that is, they are consistent
with respected theories and reliable data.
Traditionally the working hypotheses that correspond most
closely to accepted scientific truths are assumed to have good
pay off potential
It is impossible to be absolutely certain that a hypothesis will
work when tested. But the idea is to maximize the odds by
ensuring that the hypotheses is credible (hence the need to do a
literature search). 29
 Good working hypotheses have
certain characteristics
Second good working hypotheses are testable in some empirical
way.
Third they are refutable or falsiable. Falsifiability is the most
essensial scientific standard of all.
Conjectures that cannot, in principle, be refuted by any means
are not within the field of science.
For example behaviour is a product of the good and the evil
lying within refutable empiricially and therefor is not
within the realm of science. 30
 Good working hypotheses have
certain characteristics

A fourth characteristic of good working hypotheses is that they

are brief. The parsimony which means the statement is not
overly wordy and unduly complex is important.
Tradiationally it implies a combination of coherence which
means that the statement of the hypothesis sticks together
logical way .
How can you find out whether your working hypothesis cuts off
too much or does not cut off enough?
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 What is the distinction between an
independent variable and dependent variable?
A variable is a simply an event or condition that the researcher observes or measures
or plans to investigate that is likely to vary (change).
Variable is an aspect or an event which can be defined at least in two dimentions.
Gender: male-female Age :can be defined in a wide range of numerical
value
Dependent variable is the consequence (or the outcome) in which the researcher is
interested.
In other words it depends on the changes in one or more
other variables called independent variable.
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Independent variable (x) and dependent variable (y)
Changes in (x) are responsible in changes in (y)
Jogging or not jogging (x) and feeling good (y)

We do not mean that particular variables are always

either dependent and independent variables.
In fact any event or condition may be an independent
variable or a dependent variable.
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It is easy to imagine how some independnet variable might
be transformed into a dependent variable and vice versa.
Because variables derives its label from its context.
For examle if you are investigating :
the effects of sleepness (iv.) on vigilance (d.v.)
the efffects of vigilance (iv.) on traffic accidents (d.v.)

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 Example 1
Is it possible to classify independent and dependent
variable like a periodic table of elements in chemistry?
A biological independent variable affecting eating
behaviour was first identified by physicians.
They observed that tumors in the region of
hypothalamus and the pituiary gland caused the
symptoms obesity.

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It was unclear before experiments on animals were
conducted, whether the syndrome was due to
damage of the p.g. or damage of the hyp.
When the p.g. of normal animals were surgially
remove no obesity resulted. But later damage to
the hypothalamus was followed by obesity.
The status of the hypothalamus not the p.g. was
the independent biological variable involved in
the physiological regulation of food intake. . 36
 Example 2
There are many examples of social variables affecting eating
behaviour.
The reason of course is that feeding by both humans and other
specieses is affected not only by internal factors but also by many
external conditions (e.g., attitudes).
Among people in Flemish, Belgium, France, The United States,
Japan the Americans associated food most with health and least
with pleasure.

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 Example 3
Independent variables can also occure in combinations or
interactions.
For example, approximately half of the North American women
crave chocolate or sweets during the part of menstrual cycle.
But it is not clear whether this craving is due to biological or social
factors or may be combination of both.

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 Example 4

Dependent variables also have no single classification system.

Suppose a behavioral researcher wants to study pain avoidance.
What should the researcher choose as the dependent measure?
Imagining yourself quickly withdrawing your hand from a shock-
pruducing stimulus.
This suggests that measuring the time it takes to withdraw from
the stimulus (latency or delay of withdrawal) is a good dependent
variable.
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 Example 5
Another examle from developmental psychology:
Infants have always fascinated their parents by balancing
unsafely on the edge of a chair or table.
The ability to perceive depth was a subject of intense
interest to EJ Gibson and RD Walk. These investigators worked
with what they called visual cliff
A board laid a cross a large sheet of glass that was raised a foot or
more above the floor.
A checkerboard pattern covered half the glass. On the other half
the same pattern appeared on the floor directly under the glass. 40
The dependent variable was crossing versus not crossing
the apperant chasm.
As a consequence of having developed the researchers
discovered most human infants discriminate depth as
soon as they are able to crawl.

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The visual cliff was created by the perceptual experience
of the difference between the two sides.
Researchers tested infants ranging ages from 6-14
months.
Each child was placed on the central board and was
called by its mother from the other side.
Only a few moved to the glass suspended above the
pattern on the floor; most of the infants had not cross
the border.
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 What belongs in my research proposal

What would you like to study ?

Research questions, hypotheses, the experimental design, ethical
issues
Your name and the page number are repeated in the upper right corner of
every page.
Centered at the top of the first page are the words Proposal for a Research
then your name again and your contact information and the date.
Write the main body of the proposal which is devided into two sections each
with a center heading in boldface.
Finally the references.
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Use the first person style writing (I propose to conduct a randomized
experiment When writing papers for publication researchers generally do not
typically the first person style.

Main body of the proposal is divided into four sections

(a) the objective of the research and what is your motivation?
(b) the background and hypotheses
(c ) the proposed method
(d) ethical considerations
(e) the discussion of your expected results (shortly)
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In the first section, begin by briefly stating what you are
proposing.
How you came up with an initial idea, and developed it into a
testable hypotheses?
What inspired you while deciding your research question?
The background of the subject.
Next, give a detailed description of the method begining with
participants, then the prorcedure and the materials.
Finally discuss the ethical issues and expected results.
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The references which are in the APA writing style begins on
a new page.
The author-date method is the APA style of citing articles
and books.
In the references notice that the APA style is to invert all
authors names (last name, first initial, middle initial) and do
list the names in exact order in which they apear on the title
page of the cited work, using commas to separate authors
and an ampersand (&)before the last author.
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 Additional information

What are your dependent and independent variables?

What are the potential confounding variables?
Operatinal definitions of your variables.
Theorical definitions of your variables.
Your informed consent form.
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