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Conducting Research in Psychology
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Conducting Research in Psychology
Measuring the Weight of Smoke

Fifth Edition
August 2018 | 624 pages | SAGE Publications, Inc
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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.


 
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

Supplements

Student Study Site

The open-access Student Study Site includes author-created, mobile-friendly web quizzes that allow students to independently assess their progress in learning course material.

Instructor Resource Site

The password-protected Instructor Resource Site offers an author-created Instructor’s Manual that includes the following for each chapter in the book.

  • An introductory Preface with teaching tips from the authors
  • Multiple choice test questions with pre-written options as well as the opportunity to edit any question and/or insert personalized questions to assess students’ progress and understanding
  • Chapter summaries to help prepare for lectures and class discussions
  • Suggested answers to Study Questions that appear at the end of each chapter in the textbook
  • Sample course syllabi for semester and quarter courses
  • Appendices:
    • Answers to the Hands-On Activities from Appendix 1 of the textbook
    • Answers to Methodology Exercises in Appendix 2 of the textbook
    • Answers to Methodology Problems in Appendix 3 of the textbook
Key features
NEW TO THIS EDITION:
  • Two new hands-on chapters guide students through the nuts and bolts of designing and carrying out research.
    • Chapter 3 offers a conceptual overview of psychological research methods by spelling out the essential ingredients of good research and providing two simple rubrics for evaluation research.
    • Chapter 4 provides a careful summary of the process of designing and carrying out research.
  • Extensively updated online resources include over 250 new student self-test questions and over 250 new instructor test bank questions written and validated by the authors.
  • Over 100 new references to classic and contemporary papers illuminate the secrets to good research design.
KEY FEATURES:
  • A humorous writing style helps make the book highly accessible and enjoyable for readers.
  • A hands-on, commonsense approach to research induces the excitement of actually conducting research through lively examples and stories supplemented with engaging exercises.
  • Bolded and italicized terms throughout the text and in the glossary help readers identify important theoretical and technical terms.
  • Major and minor subheadings help readers organize knowledge and identify themes in each chapter.


Sample Materials & Chapters

Chapter 3

Chapter 4