Research Design!

Today’s Class

• Discuss the research topics

• Brain whev about how we can develop them into research projects

• In the process of talking them through, begin reviewing research design

Research Ideas into Research Designs

• Identify potential questions– Many of your ideas may yield multiple

“research questions”

• Talk over how we might design a study to examine a question

• Questions may be examined with both experimental and non-experimental approaches

Wanting to be too happy?

• Happiness “seeking” and unhappiness. Are we more unhappy because we are expecting to be happy?

• Do our expectations influence our feelings more than (or perhaps just as much as) our circumstances?

• How to apply this to UML students?

Youth and Media

• Media imagery extols youthfulness

• This can be a burden for the middle aged and old

• Is it also a burden for the young?

Does Money Matter?

• Quasi-experimental research showed that increases in income influenced child achievement

• How do we think this would play out among UML students?

• What other variables might we need to examine?

I like myself, I think

• Research found that people who prefer positive stimuli have a higher correlation between implicit and explicit self esteem.

• They concluded that these people trusted intuition more

• What other factors might influence the relation between implicit and explicit self esteem?

Music

• Type of personality predicted some music preferences

• R & B predicted lower depression in girls

• Would the same tendencies be true of emerging adults?

• Why perhaps not?

Please go away while I do this very difficult thing.

• Experimenter presence positively influenced ability to do a “challenge” task

• Negatively influenced ability to do a “threat” task

• Beliefs about the difficulty of the task were important

Research Topic

• Personality and Obesity across the lifespan

• Study showed that some personality traits (impulsivity) appeared to be more linked with obesity over time

• How could we apply this to a UML sample?

That diet commercial just killed my appetite

• Women who had a tendency towards restrictive eating were likely to restrict more when exposed to tv with slender women and diet commercials

• How would men react to something analogous?

• Is there a possible experiment here?

Know yourself and join the crowd

• Study showed that some identified with an in group for “self determined” reasons

• Others may identify with an in group for “external” reasons

• These types of identification are associated with different consequences

• How might we look at this in UML students?

• What might we need to control for?

Colored paper is pretty, but it could make me flunk

• Research showed that students performed less well on tests conducted on colored paper

• Would this be true for students who also commonly use highlighters or colored paper in their work?

• Would it be true for students who have usually high or usually low test performance?

You aren’t what you eat

• People with binge eating disorder had lower self-image

• Students rated themselves as being larger than they were, based on their actual body mass index

• What other factors might we look at?

• Gender?

• Experimental approaches?

Self regulation, identity, and self esteem

• Self regulation (attentional control) was related to identity development, which was in turn related to self esteem

• Why?

• Are other types of self regulation related to identity development?

• Can we “dysregulate” subjects and ask about their self esteem?

Just not feeling motivated

• Self efficacy predicted studying style in reading and writing among college students

• Would this be true among students with both better and worse grades?

Facebook!

• First year students who had more facebook friends reported lower self esteem and poorer academic adjustment

• Would it be possible to control for overall computer use—in addition to facebook use?

Eyewitless testimony

• Eyewitnesses are often wrong

• Would note taking improve accuracy?

• Are eyewitnesses more likely to be wrong about some things than others?

• What else influences this?

• Why do we feel so compelled by eyewitness testimony?

Avoiding pregnancy

• Women with access to emergency contraception were more likely to endorse vignettes involving riskier sex

• Does awareness of EC influence UML’s students ideas about sexual behavior?

Religion, Spirituality, Mental Health and Ethics

• Is religiosity related to ethical beliefs

• Is the type, or intensity of religious belief related to ethical beliefs?

• What other factors might influence this?

Perceived drug use

• Drug use appears very prevalent based on media reports

• How prevalent do UML students think it is in their peers?

• Is this related to their own drug use?

Risky personalities?

• Do some personality traits (in the normal range) predict more risky behaviors?

• Would being more “neurotic” lead to more risks such as substance abuse

• Or being less “conscientious”?

Noone wants to be the other woman

• Women more negatively rated women they perceived to be a potential “other woman” in a photo scenario, if she was provocatively dressed

• They identified more strongly with the wife in Fatal Attraction

• Is there a temporal element here?• What about a less intense representation of this

issue?• What if “the other woman” is presented as not a

desperate freak?

Self esteem

• High self esteem subjects performed differently on a reaction time task than low self esteem subjects

• Is that a good thing?

• Do men and women relate their own self esteem similarly to the type of person they would like to date?

Competition and Aggression

• Is it playing a violent video game that leads to aggression, or playing a competitive video game?

• How could we look at this in UML students?

• An experimental paradigm?

Compliance

• What influences the tendency to comply—even when we know that we are complying with something incorrect?

• Does an individual surrounded by a group feel compelled to go along?

Stereotyping gender and emotion

• Children stereotype other children’s facial emotions

• Will adults assign genders to characters exhibiting more or less “stereotyped” gender emotions?

• What else can influence gender stereotyping?

Addicted to…caffeine

• How much do UML students really know about the effects of caffeine?

• How much caffeine do they drink?

• Do they have an “instrumental” approach to their coffee drinking?

Computer happiness

• Is computer usage associated with happiness

• Does it depend on what it is used for?

• Does it depend on the amount of time?

Does sex sell

• Research shows that women responded more positively to sex themed advertising if there was also a “commitment” element

• What other factors could influence how men and women respond to sex themed advertising?

Does mood influence perception of environment?

• Subjects wrote about a neutral or negative experience while listening to music of various types

• Later they were asked to note what type of music it was

• Is the mental state you are in likely to influence your perception of what is going on around you?

Motivations for Drug Use

• People use drugs for different reasons– Relaxation, fun, escape

• Are there differences in why men and women choose drug and alcohol use, in addition to differences in frequency?

Time of Day and Smoking

• Does the time of day of smoking influence level of addiction (in addition to how much someone smokes)?

Sports and Delinquency

• Sports participation seems both positively and negatively related to delinquency

• What are the factors that could influence the direction of that relationship?

National Security and beliefs about others

• Are Americans overly geared towards external threats?

• Do we use this as a way of reducing a focus on our own issues?