Surveys Looking at the Big Picture

27
Research Methods in Psychology
doing
2
learn
by
TRANSLATING
OBSER VATIONS INTO
EVIDENCE Observing peo-
ple in natural settings can provide
important clues to understanding social
interaction and other aspects of behavior
and mental processes. It is harder than it
looks. Imagine you are studying these
children at play, and make a list of the
exact behaviors you would count as
“aggressive,” “shy,” “fearful,” “cooperative,” and “competitive.”
to lift off his wife’s head as if it were a hat and put it on his own head. He could not
name common objects, but he could describe them. When handed a glove, for example,
he said, “A continuous surface, infolded on itself. It appears to have . . . five outpouchings,
if this is the word . . . a container of some sort.” Only later, when he put it on his hand,
did he exclaim, “My God, it’s a glove!” (Sacks, 1985, p. 13). Using case studies such as
this one, pioneers in neuropsychology have noted the symptoms suffered by people with
particular kinds of brain damage or disease (Banich, 2004). Eventually, neuropsychologists were able to tie specific disorders to certain types of injuries, poisons, and other
causes. In Dr. P.’s case, it was probably a large brain tumor that caused his symptoms.
Case studies do have their limitations. They may not represent people in general,
and they may contain only the evidence a particular researcher considered important
(Loftus & Guyer, 2002). Nonetheless, when conducted and used with care, case studies
can provide valuable raw material for further research and can serve as the testing
ground for new treatments, training programs, and other applications of research
(Tavris, 2004).
Surveys: Looking at the Big Picture
surveys Research that involves giving
people questionnaires or interviews designed to describe their attitudes, beliefs, opinions, and intentions.
In contrast to the individual close-ups provided by case studies, surveys offer wideangle views of large groups. In surveys, researchers use interviews or questionnaires
to ask people about their behavior, attitudes, beliefs, opinions, or intentions. Just as
politicians and advertisers rely on opinion polls to test the popularity of policies or
products, psychologists use surveys to gather descriptive data on just about any behavior or mental process, from parenting practices to sexual behavior. However, the validity of survey data depends partly on the way the survey questions are asked (Bhopal
et al., 2004). In one survey study at a health clinic, patients were asked how frequently
they experienced headaches, stomachaches, and other symptoms of illness (Schwarz &
Scheuring, 1992). If the wording of the question suggested that most people frequently
experience such symptoms, the patients said that they frequently experienced them,
too. But if the wording suggested that people rarely experience these symptoms, the
28
Chapter 1 Introduction to the Science of Psychology
LEARNING FROM RARE CASES
Dustin Hoffman’s character in the movie
Rain Man was based on the case of
“Joseph,” an autistic man who can, for
example, mentally multiply or divide sixdigit numbers. Other case studies have
described autistic savants who can correctly identify the day of the week for
any date in the past or the future or tell
at a glance that, say, exactly 125 paper
clips are scattered on the floor. By carefully studying such rare cases, cognitive
psychologists are learning more about
human mental capacities and how they
might be maximized in everyone.
patients said that they experienced the symptoms infrequently. A survey’s validity also
depends on who is surveyed. If the people surveyed do not represent the views of the
population you are interested in, it is easy to be misled by survey results (Gosling
et al., 2004; Kraut et al., 2004). For example, if you were interested in Americans’ views
on how common ethnic prejudice is, you would come to the wrong conclusion if you
surveyed only African Americans or only European Americans. To get a complete
picture, you would have to survey people from all ethnic groups so that each group’s
opinions could be fairly represented.
Other limitations of the survey method are more difficult to avoid. For example,
the American Society for Microbiology (ASM) found that 95 percent of the U.S.
adults it surveyed said that they wash their hands after using toilet facilities. However, naturalistic observations of thousands of people in public restrooms across the
United States revealed that the figure is closer to 67 percent (ASM, 2000). In other
words, people may be unwilling to admit undesirable or embarrassing things about
themselves, or they may say what they believe they should say about an issue. And
sometimes those who respond to a survey hold views that differ from those who do
not respond (Visser et al., 2000). Survey results—and the conclusions drawn from
them—will be distorted to the extent that these tendencies distort people’s responses
and researchers’ access to responses (Hoyle et al., 2002). Still, surveys provide an efficient way to gather large amounts of data about people’s attitudes, beliefs, or other
characteristics.
A SEVERELY FLAWED SUR VEY
Using survey methods like this, you could
probably get whatever results you want!
Psychologists work hard to write questions and use methods that maximize the
validity of their surveys’ results.
© Scott Adams/Distributed by United Feature Syndicate, Inc.