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that it is not misleading? As we will see later in the book, there are various ways that researchers address the directionality and third-variable problems. The most effective, however, is to conduct an experiment. An experiment is a study in which the researcher manipulates the independent variable. For example, instead of simply measuring how much people exercise, a researcher could bring people into a laboratory and randomly assign half of them to run on a treadmill for 15 minutes and the rest to sit on a couch for 15 minutes. Although this seems like a minor addition to the research design, it is extremely important. Now if the exercisers end up in more positive moods than those who did not exercise, it cannot be because their moods affected how much they exercised (because it was the researcher who determined how much they exercised). Likewise, it cannot be because some third variable (e.g., physical health) affected both how much they exercised and what mood they were in (because, again, it was the researcher who determined how much they exercised). Thus experiments eliminate the directionality and third-variable problems and allow researchers to draw firm 24 conclusions about causal relationships. We will have much more to say about experimental and nonexperimental research later in the book. KEY TAKEAWAYS • Research questions in psychology are about variables and relationships between variables. • Two basic forms of statistical relationship are differences between group means and correlations between quantitative variables, each of which can be described using a few simple statistical techniques. • Correlation does not imply causation. A statistical relationship between two variables, X and Y, does not necessarily mean that X causes Y. It is also possible that Y causes X, or that a third variable, Z, causes both Xand Y.. Practice: List 10 variables that might be of interest to a researcher in psychology. For each, specify whether it is quantitative or categorical. 2. Practice: Imagine that you categorize people as either introverts (quieter, shyer, more inward looking) or extroverts (louder, more outgoing, more outward looking). Sketch a bar graph showing a hypothetical statistical relationship between this variable and the number of words people speak per day. 3. Practice: Now imagine that you measure people’s levels of extroversion as a quantitative variable, with values ranging from 0 (extreme introversion) to 30 (extreme extroversion). Sketch a scatterplot showing a hypothetical statistical relationship between this variable and the number of words people speak per day. 4. Practice: For each of the following statistical relationships, decide whether the directionality problem is present and think of at least one plausible third variable: a. People who eat more lobster tend to live longer. b. People who exercise more tend to weigh less. c. College students who drink more alcohol tend to have poorer grades. Chapter 2 25 2.2 Generating Good Research Questions Available under Creative Commons-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License (http:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/). LEARNING OBJECTIVES 1. Describe some common sources of research ideas and generate research ideas using those sources. 2. Describe some techniques for turning research ideas into empirical research questions and use those techniques to generate questions. 3. Explain what makes a research question interesting and evaluate research questions in terms of their interestingness. Good research must begin with a good research question. Yet coming up with good research questions is something that novice researchers often find difficult and stressful. One reason is that this is a creative process that can appear mysterious—even magical—with experienced researchers seeming to pull interesting research questions out of thin air. However, psychological research on creativity has shown that it is neither as mysterious nor as magical as it appears. It is largely the product of ordinary thinking strategies and persistence (Weisberg, 1993). 3 This section covers some fairly simple strategies for finding general research ideas, turning those ideas into empirically testable research questions, and
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