Preface
 
About the Authors
 
CHAPTER 1. How Do We Know?
                              Introduction: What This Text Is About
 
 
                              A Few Quick Tips for Using This Text
 
 
                              A Brief History of Human Knowledge
 
 
                              The Four Canons of Science
 
 
                              Four Ways of Knowing About the World
 
 
 
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
 
 
 
CHAPTER 3. In a Nutshell: An Overview of Psychological Research Methods
                              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
 
 
 
CHAPTER 4. Making It Happen: A Hands-On Guide to a First Research Project
                              Step 1: Hypothesis Generation
 
 
                              Step 2: Operationalization (Design)
 
 
                              Step 4: Execution (Data Collection)
 
 
                              Step 5: Calculation (Data Analysis)
 
 
 
CHAPTER 5. Moving From Fact to Truth: Validity, Reliability, and Measurement
                              Reliability, Validity, and the “More Is Better” Rule
 
 
 
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
 
 
 
CHAPTER 7. How Do We Misinterpret? Common Threats to Validity
                              One Strange and Lucrative Story
 
 
                              The Process of Studying People Changes People
 
 
                              Moving From Three Threats to Two: Confounds and Artifacts
 
 
 
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
 
 
                              Confounds Can Be Measured, Too!
 
 
 
CHAPTER 9. Experience Carefully Planned: Experimental Research Designs
                              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
 
 
 
CHAPTER 10. Experience Carefully Exploited: Quasi-Experimental Research Designs
                              Kinds of Quasi-Experiments
 
 
                              When True Experiments and Quasi-Experiments Collide
 
 
 
CHAPTER 11. Choosing the Right Research Design
 
CHAPTER 12. A Brief Course in Statistics
                              How Numbers and Language Revolutionized Human History
 
 
                              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
 
 
 
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)
 
 
                              Talk About One Interesting Thing
 
 
                              Take Charge of the Interaction
 
 
 
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
 
 
 
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
 
 
                              4. Impressive Pickup Lines
 
 
                              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
 
 
                              18. Can a Couple of Beers Really Go Straight to Your Belly?
 
 
                              20. Are You Threatening Me?
 
 
                              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