Each chapter begins with Chapter Overview and Chapter Preview and concludes with Chapter Summary and Key Terms.
1. Psychology, Science, and Life. What Constitutes Scientific Knowledge?
Different Ways of Knowing.
The Interaction of Science and Culture.
Science and the Popular Media
Science and Pseudoscience.
2. Ethics in Research: Following the Golden Rule. Unethical Research PracticesPast and Present.
Ethical Guidelines Created by the American Psychological Association.
Legal Requirements and Ethics in Research.
The Importance of Social Context in Deciding on Ethics in Research.
What You Need to Do If Your Research Involves Deception.
Ethics and Web-Based Research.
Ethics and Research with Animals.
3. Planning Research: Generating a Question. How Do Research Ideas Develop?
The Virtual Laboratory: Research on the Internet.
Checking on Research: The Role of Replication.
How to Conduct a Literature Review.
How to Read a Journal Article.
4. Practical Issues in Planning Your Research. Practical Questions in Planning Research.
Understanding Your Ideas: Creating Variables.
Conducting Your Study.
Choosing the People You Study.
Probability Sampling.
Nonprobability Sampling.
Controversy: Is the Head Start Program Effective?
Making Useful Measurements.
Differing Approaches in Different Areas of Psychology.
5. Conducting an Experiment: General Principles. Choosing a Methodology: The Practicalities of Research.
Determining the Causes of Behavior.
The Logic of Experimental Manipulation.
Ethics in Experimental, Clinical Research.
Experimental Control.
Experimenter Effects.
Participant Effects.
Interaction Effects Between Experimenters and Participants.
Considering Validity in Creating Experiments.
6. The Design of Simple and Complex Experiments. Psychological Concepts.
Independent and Dependent Variables.
Types of Independent and Dependent Variables.
Defining and Measuring Variables.
Single and Multiple Independent Variable
Main Effects.
Interactions between Variables.
Identifying Research Designs.
7. Expanding on Experimental Designs: Repeated Measures and Quasi-Experiments. Repeated Measures Designs.
Advantages of Repeated Measures Designs.
Limitations to Repeated Measures Designs.
Data Analysis with Repeated Measures Designs.
Quasi-Experimental Designs.
Types of Quasi-Experimental Designs.
8. Principles of Survey Research. Surveys: Answering Diverse Questions.
Ethics in Survey Research.
Selecting Your Methodology.
The Survey Instrument.
Response Bias.
Special Considerations for Internet Surveys.
Sampling Issues.
9. Correlational Research. Correlational Studies.
Using the Correlational Approach.
Traditional Correlational Tests.
Correlations with Multiple Variables.
Limitations of Multivariate Correlational Analyses.
Chapter Review.
10. Studying Patterns in the Natural World: Observational Approaches. Observational Approaches.
Scientific versus Casual Observation.
Studying Natural Behaviors.
Approaches to Observational Research.
Sampling Issues in Observational Research.
Ethological Observations in Clinical Research.
The Human Side of Observational Research.
Data Analysis in Observational Research.
Chapter Review.
11. Research in Depth: Longitudinal and Single-Case Studies. Longitudinal Research.
Varieties of Longitudinal Research.
Issues in Longitudinal Designs.
Data Analysis in Longitudinal Research.
Single-Subject Research.
Methods of Single-Case Designs.
Case Studies.
Chapter Review.
12. People Are Different: Considering Cultural and Individual Differences in Research. Different Cultural Perspectives.
Defining an Individuals Culture, Ethnicity, and Race.
Cross-Cultural Concepts in Psychology.
Is There a Biological Basis for Race?
Practical Issues in Cultural Research.
Why the Concepts of Culture and Ethnicity Are Essential in Research.
Cultural Factors in Mental Health Research.
Sex and Gender: Do Men and Women Come from Different Cultures?
Appendix A: Writing a Research Report. Appendix B: Statistics Review. Appendix C: Statistical Tables. Appendix D: Archival Research. 