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Some of the methods are: 1. Observation Method 2. Experimental Method or Experimental Observation 3. Psychological Experiment 4. Variables – Independent – Dependent and Intervening 5. Control 6. The Case Method 7. Survey Method.
Method # 1. Observation Method:
The basic method of psychology, as is the case with any science, is observation. Early psychologists tried to study and explain behaviour by just observing the behaviour and activities of organisms. On the basis of their observation, they tried to find explanations.
This type of observation is called natural observation or non-controlled observation. This term means that the observation was made in natural settings, as and when the behaviour occurred. On the basis of repeated observations, the psychologists attempted to formulate general laws and principles.
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An outstanding example of laws based on such natural observations is the laws of association formulated by Locke, Berkeley, Brown and other British philosophers. At a still deeper level philosophers tried to combine observation with logic and tried to develop psychological theories. Natural observation was employed for a long time for psychological study.
This method had its advantages as well as disadvantages. Some of the advantages are as follows:
(a) It is easy to collect data and no special arrangements or gadgets are necessary.
(b) By observing behaviour in natural situations, we are really observing behaviour in life situations.
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If the aim of psychology is to understand and predict behaviour in real life situations then the natural thing to do will be to study behaviour in life situations. Whereas in the case of physics or chemistry, observations made in a laboratory can hold good even outside, the same cannot be said about behaviour. Life situations are different from laboratory situations. Hence natural observation would be more ideal and meaningful.
However, there are also some very serious disadvantages and difficulties in employing the method of natural observations. Some of these are as follows:
(a) It is not possible to observe all types of behaviour in a natural setting. Some aspects of behaviour are implicit and are not open to observation. Feelings and other internal processes cannot be observed.
(b) It is difficult to convert data from natural observation into quantitative terms.
(c) Different observers observing the same behaviour may conclude differently.
For example, if one finds a friend in a not very communicative mood, one may conclude that he is angry. But another person meeting him may conclude that he is sad. Thus, the same behaviour on the part of an individual may convey different meanings to different observers.
(d) Many instances of behaviour do not repeat themselves. An important requisite of scientific observation is repeatability. This is often impossible in natural observation. Thus, if the psychologist is interested in studying how people react when a close relative is involved in an accident, it is obvious that he cannot either expect or even wish for many such instances. Thus, one may see that the method of natural observation imposes severe limitations. It involves a lot of time and effort. Imagine a chemist who wants to study the effect of heat on some chemical and cannot wait for the solar heat to increase to 600° C.
The best thing for him to do would be to take the chemical into a laboratory, heat it and watch the changes. So natural observation has its limitations and psychology like other sciences has also turned to what is called experimental observation or the experimental method.
Method # 2. Experimental Method or Experimental Observation:
As indicated just above, an experiment is a procedure by which certain conditions, events etc. which occur in nature are artificially created and reproduced in the laboratory. The chemist who studies the effect of heat on a chemical in the laboratory, is actually creating and reproducing a phenomenon that can be expected to occur in nature under certain circumstances.
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In fact, this is called simulation. Once the psychologists accepted the idea of experimentation then it became possible to create in the laboratory different types of conditions that can produce or simulate any type of behaviour the psychologist may desire to study. In short, the experimental method involves the creation of certain stimulating conditions or the presentation of certain stimuli that would evoke or produce a certain response.
The experimental psychologist, therefore, essentially produces certain stimuli and studies the reaction or response. Through repeated observations on a number of people, he arrives at certain generalisations about the relationships or the connections between stimuli and responses.
Let us take an example. A psychologist wants to study how people react if they hear a very loud noise. The experimental procedure is very simple. He invites some of his friends and other volunteers to his room or his laboratory and arranges to produce a very loud noise without the people being aware of it. Then he observes the behaviour and finds that most of his friends jump from their chairs, a few of them actually fall down, but one or two are relatively undisturbed.
Then he tries to find out why one or two were undisturbed. He comes to know that these two friends had served in the army and were used to loud explosions. He now comes to two conclusions.
First, in general people get disturbed when they hear a very loud noise suddenly.
Second, people who were earlier used to hearing loud noises are not disturbed much. This actually takes us to a second important feature of the experimental method. The psychologist now conducts the experiment a second time. This time he takes the background of all his volunteers and asks them for their previous experience; whether they have served in the army or whether they were used to loud noises.
He excludes those who reported familiarity with loud noise. His experiments show that all his friends are disturbed but one or two of them very significantly. He enquires of them why they were disturbed so much. The answer comes that they were afraid not only of the loud noise but also because of the fact that the room was closed.
He now conducts a third experiment keeping half of the friends in a closed room and the other half in an open room. His experiments show people in the closed room were disturbed much more than the others. Now, what has the experiment shown? It has shown that the disturbance which occurs is caused by not only a loud noise but also by the closed room.
Now compare this with natural observation. The experimenter psychologist goes on varying the conditions of his observation. He can change the people he observes. He can change the nature of stimulus. He can also change the conditions of the experiments. Obviously, such things cannot be done if we depend only on natural observation.
For example, a teacher finds that four of his good students appear very sad after an examination. He may conclude that these four students are disappointed with their performance in their examination. But on enquiring he may find that the two of them are sad because they had lost some money while travelling by the bus and one of them is sad because somebody in his home had fallen ill.
In view of this, perhaps, they did not do as well in the examinations as they were capable of. But it is difficult to say how much of their sadness is due to the examination and how much due to the other factors. This possibility of changing the various aspects of the observation gives a distinct advantage to the experimental method.
This is called establishment of control. The term control means taking all necessary steps to see that conditions and factors which affect the relationship between stimuli and responses are isolated, eliminated or neutralized. It is characteristic of human behaviour that at any time the organism is exposed to a variety of stimuli and not a single stimulus. In view of this, controls are very important in experimental psychology.
Over the years experimental psychologists have developed very fine techniques and methods of establishing control in their experiments. They can manipulate the people who are being subjected to the experiments or the conditions of the experiment or the stimuli themselves. Very often control involves the changing or manipulation of all these.
The experimental method has another advantage, in that observations can be made much more accurate. The degree of disturbance can be measured in terms of heartbeat, blood pressure, etc. Suitable gadgets or measuring instruments can be made use of to arrive at a precise and accurate observation of the levels of disturbance. This is not possible in natural observation.
In the early stages, experiments in psychology were very simple and not sophisticated. Many of the gadgets and instruments available today were not available then. In view of this, early experimental psychologists depended on what is called introspection.
After producing a stimulus, they would ask the subject or the person to report or state all the psychological changes, events and experiences occurring in them. This method was known as introspection. The term introspection means looking within. Actually it was the subject who made the observations and reported the same to the experimenter.
But the method of introspection soon came in for criticism on the following grounds:
(a) The subject may not be able to observe all the experiences.
(b) They may not be able to report or express correctly all their experiences.
(c) The same experience may be reported differently by different people.
(d) Comparison and quantification of different experiences would be erroneous.
In view of these objections, the method of introspection gradually fell out of favour. The psychologist began to develop different types of apparatus and psychological tests for observation and measurement. Some of these are mechanical and electrical gadgets while many of them are paper and pencil tests or requiring the subject to carry out some specific tasks.
One may go on at length about the experimental method but this is neither possible nor necessary here. It is sufficient to say that in the past hundred years or so psychologists have developed the experimental method to a very high degree of perfection comparable to experiments in other sciences.
However, the experimental method also has its disadvantages. Firstly, no matter how much the methods of experimentation may improve, there are still certain aspects of behaviour or categories of behaviour which cannot be studied experimentally. Secondly, generalization and prediction made from laboratory experiments may not be very true in real life situations.
It is not possible to control all the conditions of life in laboratory conditions. Thirdly, the experimental method involves the use of gadgets, apparatus and unnatural elements which may themselves vitiate the control in an experiment. Finally, it is impossible to study complex behaviour in an experimental situation.
These limitations notwithstanding, experimental psychology has made tremendous advances and contributed a lot to the development of psychology. Generalisations and predictions based on experiments have been found to be very reasonably accurate and true. In recent years, psychologists have developed the experimental method to include the study of not only individuals but of whole groups; not only of normal people but also of abnormal people.
Experiments in psychology often appear to be simple, but this is not so. Psychological experiments call for a lot of thinking, planning and preparation. The different aspects of the experiment like the stimuli, the subjects and the conditions in the laboratory have to be designed and selected very carefully.
Measurements have to be accurate. In spite of these the psychologist should be aware that his prediction and generalization may not always be found to occur in non-laboratory situations. This gap between the findings of the experiment and actual life behaviour can be bridged only by conducting more and more experiments, identifying the reasons for the gap and the failure of the prediction.
Thus, we can say, no experiment in psychology can be said to be complete at any time. There is always a scope, and more than that, a need to go on extending the experiment. This, perhaps, is peculiar to psychology unlike other sciences. To overcome some of these difficulties, psychologists have resorted to non-laboratory experiments like field experiments.
Participant Observation:
Another form of the observation method employed by psychologists is known as participant observation. The method was adopted by psychologists from anthropology. Anthropologists who were interested in studying the customs and practices of different societies very often went and lived as members of these communities adopting the ways and customs of the people whom they were studying.
This method gave them the advantage of being able to understand very intimately the practices. They were able to appreciate the meaning of different aspects in the total context of life. Encouraged by the success of the anthropologists, psychologists also began to adopt this method. This method is today extensively used in psychology.
Psychologists who are interested in the study of groups like committees, work-groups, etc., very often become actual members of such groups, participate in their activities and at the same time make scientific observations. This method has been found to be very useful and helpful. Very often participant observation is employed to validate the findings and interpretations arrived at through other methods.
Method # 3. Psychological Experiment:
Most laypersons and perhaps even beginners in psychology often wonder what a psychological experiment can be like; they are even baffled that the psychologist claims to be an experimental scientist.
Comparing a Psychological Experiment with an Experiment in Chemistry or Physics:
Let us take, for example, a student in a chemistry laboratory who comes across some solid substance. He wants to know what happens if this substance is heated.
He puts some of the powdered bits in a crucible and heats it. After some time the solid disappears and becomes a liquid. On further heating it becomes gaseous, and begins to give a smell. Here, the student finds that the property (behaviour) of the substance changes when heated.
He then proceeds to repeat the experiment to find out at what temperature the solid becomes a liquid and the liquid becomes a gas. Proceeding further he tries to compare the colour, smell, and even other chemical properties and studies how they change. Let us now compare a psychological experiment with this. In the place of the solid substance of the chemist, the psychologist tries to study a human organism.
This organism is the subject. The chemist applies heat. The psychologist also applies some type of force, or changes the state of existence of the organism. This is called the stimulus variable. The chemist observes the change in colour and other properties.
The psychologist studies the changes in appearance, action, emotion, feeling etc. These are the responses. Now, just as the chemist wants to determine the exact temperature of melting, the psychologist also tries to determine the exact stimulating conditions that produce specific changes in response.
The analogy looks simple and neat. In actuality, however, there are certain differences which complicate a psychological experiment. Some of these are:
1. The human organism responds to a number of stimuli at the same time. In the case of the chemical, all other conditions except temperature can be held constant. This is not possible in the case of the human organism, who without the knowledge of this experimenter and perhaps without his own knowledge may be responding to certain stimuli.
The changes in behaviour may be produced by these stimuli and not the one studied by the investigator. Secondly, the human organism responds not only to stimuli from outside but also to forces from inside (like the needs of the organism).
2. Similarly all the responses of the human organism cannot be seen from outside. Some of the changes may be internal. Hence, special observational techniques are necessary.
3. In the case of the chemical, if you take different pieces they are alike and react in the same way. But this is not the case with human beings. Individuals differ from each other in responding to the same stimuli. A delicate college girl may swoon at the sight of blood, but another girl, a nurse of the same age, will not.
These differences make the psychological experiment more complicated and this will become clearer as we proceed. Presently it may be useful to consider some of the terms common to the experimental method in general and psychological experiments in particular.
Method # 4. Variables – Independent – Dependent and Intervening:
The term ‘variable’ means that which can be varied or changed or that which changes or varies itself. Let us go back again to the chemistry student with his experiment. Here, when heat is applied, the nature, colour and properties of the material change. The stimulus is changed and the responses change. The former represents one type and the latter another type of variable.
The first variable can be changed by the experimenter at will and is deliberately and systematically varied to find out how this is accompanied by changes in the second set of variables. Thus, the variation of the one is known and the other unknown. But the variation in the second variable is known to follow changes in the first variable. However, there is no such definite relationship in the reverse direction.
We now go to define the two types of variables Independent and Dependent. The Independent Variable is the one which is systematically and independently varied by the experimenter while the Dependent Variable is the change he expects to occur as a result of the changes he has produced in the Independent Variable. An example may make this clearer.
Let us imagine that a psychologist wants to study experimentally the effect of sleeplessness on accuracy of hearing. He may proceed to conduct the experiment as follows. He takes a group of subjects. He makes a series of sounds from very low intensity to high intensity. Then he makes a note of the lowest sound which this subject is able to hear. After this he keeps the subject busy not allowing them to sleep.
After an hour he again makes a note of the lowest audible sound. The procedure is repeated at the end of 2 hours, 4 hours etc. After a number of trials, he finds that with increasing sleep-deprivation the intensity of the lowest audible sound increases. In this experiment, the amount of sleep-deprivation is the Independent Variable and the ability to hear is the Dependent Variable.
In any experiment, it is not necessary that there should be only one Independent Variable and one Dependent Variable. For example, if the same psychologist, in addition, wants to know not only the effect of sleep-deprivation but also the effect of age, he can take two subjects, one being a young subject and the other being an old subject. Here, age will be the second Independent Variable.
Again, in addition to accuracy of hearing he may study accuracy of vision also. In certain experiments the number of variables may be very large. Such experiments are called multivariate experiments. Where there is only one independent variable and dependent variable, it is called a Uni-variate Experiment.
Sometimes one may come across a third term Intervening Variable. Intervening variables are in fact, a type of independent variables. But they differ, in that they are not deliberately introduced or varied by the experimenter. But nonetheless, on observing the results, they are also found to have influenced the responses of the dependent variables.
Their effect may be in the same direction as that of the main independent variables or in another direction. In the experiment on sleep-deprivation, let us suppose the subjects do not show any fall in auditory acuity. On enquiry the experimenter finds that these people have taken a cup of coffee, or they were listening to the music playing in the next room or that they are used to sleep-deprivation being night shift workers.
Now, these factors or variables have intervened between the independent variable and the dependent variable and altered the relationship between the two. In most instances, these intervening variables are purely internal or subjective in nature like feelings, needs, practice etc. In any experiment care must be taken to eliminate the operation of these intervening variables. This aspect is called establishing control and is discussed below.
Method # 5. Control:
A chemist before he arrives at a conclusion about the property of a chemical repeats the observation a number of times. The psychologist also has to do the same. He has to make repeated observations on the same individual and also on different individuals before arriving at a conclusion.
Here the chemist is at an advantage. Fortunately for him all samples of the same substance drawn from the same source are to a very large extent similar. But this is not true of human beings who differ very much from each other. So, as far as possible, the psychologist also has to select people who do not differ from each other much. Otherwise, the results of his experiment may not be as expected.
In the experiment on the effect of sleep-deprivation, for the two subjects – one who was active throughout the day and straightaway comes to the laboratory to serve as a subject at 8.30 p.m. and the other who was sleeping till 8 p.m. and comes to the laboratory at 8.30 p.m. – the results will be different.
Here it becomes necessary for the experimenter to ensure that both the subjects have been spending the day in more or less the same way before he starts the experiment. Thus ensuring of homogeneity becomes necessary for all psychological experiments. This is one type of control, which the experimenter has to establish viz., homogeneity in the subjects. He has to select the subjects carefully.
Yet another type of control also becomes necessary in psychological experiments. The human subject differs from the chemical substance in another way. When a chemical is being heated, it is affected by the heat. The chemist can see to it that no other factor affects it.
He can have a control over the atmospheric pressure and other forces which might affect the substance. But with the human being this is not the case. At the same time he is influenced by a number of factors. In the experiment on sleep-deprivation it is possible that some subjects may become hungry also and the fall in accuracy of perception may be due to this.
Again, some people may feel the deprivation less if they are given some interesting games or reading material. All these factors are bound to affect the results of the experiment. Hence, the experimenter has to maintain these experimental conditions uniform. He has to see to it that no independent variable other than the one chosen (e.g.. sleep-deprivation) is at work.
In addition, he has also to ensure that experimental conditions are uniform. Thus, here also controls have to be exercised. This is very important. It is here that most psychological experiments face difficulty. As a result, several methods of establishing controls have been arrived at. These methods are devices to establish maximum possible control to prevent irrelevant variables vitiating the results and to ensure homogeneity of the subjects experimented upon.
Experimental and Control Groups:
The psychologist uses groups of subjects. This is necessary for the reason, viz. the need in any scientific experiment to make repeated observation. These repeated observations can be made in two ways, one method is by carrying out the experiment on the same individual many times.
This may not be possible for many reasons:
First, the same individual may not be available or willing to take part in the experiment on many occasions.
The second and more serious is in the nature of psychological experiments themselves. Most psychological experiments require the subject to do something. If he does it once, he learns it and his performance in the subsequent experiments will be affected by this practice. This is not the case with the chemical or physical objects employed by other scientists.
Thirdly, the human beings differ from each other unlike the different samples of a substance studied by the chemist.
Hence, to make a study of some behaviour, we must include different types of human subjects and therefore psychological experiments almost always involve groups of subjects. It is also possible that the individual develops certain habitual ways of responding and perhaps is also able to expect or anticipate experimental stimuli. These result in errors of habituation and anticipation.
In a typical psychological experiment we have two types of groups. There may be only one group in some experiments and more than two in others; the two groups are called ‘Control group’ and ‘Experimental group’. Now both these groups are matched in all respects excepting the independent variables which are proposed to be studied in the particular experiment.
Let us now discuss the experiment on the effect of sleep-deprivation on auditory acuity. The experimenter could take the same group and study the auditory acuity after different degrees of sleep-deprivation.
Now if the experimenter finds it difficult to study the same group of subjects on repeated occasions, he can as well start the experiment, with two or three groups; one group with no deprivation, a second group with one hour deprivation, a third group, with two hours deprivation etc. Here you will find that in the first group, the independent variable, namely ‘sleep-deprivation’ does not operate. It is controlled.
Hence this is a ‘control group’. In the other two groups the experimental independent variable has been introduced. So, these are then called experimental groups. An experimental group is that in which some independent variable is introduced or altered for the purpose of the experiment.
It must be pointed out, however, that the alteration or introduction of the experimental variables need not always be of an artificial type. If, for example, a psychologist wants to study the amount of self-confidence in children with fathers and children without fathers, he selects a group of children whose fathers are alive and another group whose fathers are not alive.
Here the independent variable is the presence or absence of the father. But both the control and experimental groups are available in nature. In some experiments there can be more than one experimental group. In the experiment quoted above the psychologist may study father absent and mother present children, father present and mother absent, both absent etc. Here there can be many experimental groups.
It must be borne in mind however, that great care must be exercised in selecting the two groups. The two groups must be matched to make them similar in all relevant variables except the specific independent variables under experimentation. The relevant variables on which matching has to be done vary from experiment to experiment.
In experiments where only one group is used for entire experiment, the same group is put under varying conditions, e.g. no sleep-deprivation, one hour’s deprivation etc. The independent variable is varied instead of experimental and control groups. Here we have Experimental Conditions and Control Conditions.
In the latter no variation of the independent variable is introduced while in the former, the projected variations in conditions are introduced. Here also care must be taken to keep other factors, like subjects’ moods, physiological conditions etc., similar under both the conditions.
Hypothesis:
We will discuss the term which is very frequently used in experimental psychology. The main aim in any experiment is to study the effect of some stimulus or condition on some response or behaviour. That is, an attempt is made to study the relationship between an Independent Variable and a Dependent Variable.
Now taking the experiment on sleep-deprivation and auditory acuity, an experimenter can proceed in two ways. He can start without any preconceived idea, go on experimenting with different individuals and, based on the findings, come to the conclusion that sleep-deprivation lowers auditory acuity.
On the other hand, if he already knows something about the physiological aspects of sleep, and also the physiology and psychology of hearing he can start the experiment in another way. From the knowledge of sleep physiology and psychology, he can conclude that sleep-deprivation produces fatigue. From the knowledge of psychology of hearing he knows that auditory acuity depends on a healthy body and mind.
Putting the two together he can have some idea of the relationship between sleep-deprivation and auditory acuity, i.e. sleep-deprivation brings down auditory acuity. Now he can start his experiment with this preliminary idea, and proceed to confirm or reject his preliminary idea.
Most psychological experiments start with such hypothesis. The practice of starting an experiment with a hypothesis has some advantage. It helps the experimenter to be more definite about the specific Dependent Variables he has to study, so that he can measure them more accurately.
Also, if his results are not in the expected direction, it is easy for him to know whether it is due to some defects in the experiment or due to the real nature of the phenomenon. The latter is not possible in the first method, because we do not know what is the expected result and what is not. Thirdly, if one were to adopt the first approach he may, theoretically speaking, never know when to end his experiment.
However, the method of hypothesis formation and verification poses some problems. First of all hypothesis formation implies the knowledge of previous experiments on the related areas or practical experience and observations. A hypothesis can be formulated only if there are some known facts about some variables common between the Independent Variable and the Dependent Variable.
For example, in the above illustration the formation of hypothesis implies the knowledge of previous experiments on the related areas of practical experience and observations. A hypothesis can be formulated only if there are some known facts about some variables common between the Independent Variable and the Dependent Variable.
For example, in the above illustration the formation of the hypothesis involves knowledge of origin of fatigue and the effect of fatigue on sensory behaviour. When such knowledge is absent it may not be correct to form a hypothesis. A hypothesis when it is formed must be precise, clear and specific.
Otherwise, it is not likely to be very useful. If it is vague it approaches a theory and if it is specific it is useless. For example, in the above experiment, if an experimenter starts with a hypothesis that fatigue affects sensory capacities, this tells us nothing definite about sleep-deprivation and auditory acuity.
It is very vague. On the other hand if he states that sleep-deprivation affects capacity to hear bell sounds this becomes very specific and psychologically not very meaningful. Hence, a hypothesis has to be precise and specific and at the same time wide enough to be psychologically meaningful and scientifically useful.
Method # 6. The Case Method:
The case method is a gift to psychology from the field of medicine. Clinical psychology uses this as a main method. Subsequently other branches of psychology also found it useful to employ this method. Social psychologists studying certain problems, employ the case method.
Social psychologists employ the case method at different levels. At the first level, the case method is employed to study and understand the various factors related to the occurrence of a particular event, e.g., a few years ago there was a sudden panic in Hyderabad city. People from certain areas started leaving their homes and almost travelling by whatever mode of transport was available.
Later on it came to be ‘known’, that the river Moosi in the city of Hyderabad had overflown and that several areas were being inundated. This wild rumor had spread. Actually there was not a drop of water in the river and the river certainly could not have overflown.
Some drainage pipes had broken the previous night, and there was a scare in the public and there was no question of any place being inundated. But the previous night’s fear scared them enough to fly away like crows. This is certainly an interesting event or phenomenon for social psychologists in particular to study. In such an instance, the case method would be the most suitable.
The social psychologists can collect all the necessary information, meet the people, talk to them, study how the rumor originated, how it was transmitted and finally what were’ the different kinds of consequential behaviour. This may help not only to understand the course of events in the situation, but perhaps also help in dealing with an actual disaster in the future.
A second level of application of the case method is at the level of organisations. Organisational psychologists make use of this method extensively. Let us imagine that there are a number of similar industrial units comparable in all respects like resources, technology etc. But one of them is faring badly in terms of performance and output.
The problem before the organisational psychologist is to understand why one unit alone should fare badly. Here again, the case method is probably the most helpful. The investigator tries to collect all possible information about the various factors, employs different types of sources like documented information, questionnaires, interviews and tries to understand what has gone wrong. Perhaps, it is the style of leadership, or some other motivational factors.
Such case studies can help us to understand ‘idiosyncratic’ behaviour. Similarly the case method can also be employed to understand organisations which do very well under even serious resource constraints. Such knowledge will help us to improve the performance of organisations, by creating suitable conditions and evolving appropriate behavioural systems. An outstanding example of such a type of research is the one carried out by Peterman and Water on excellence in successful leading American corporations.
On certain occasions social psychologists have also been facing the need to study whole communities. For example, we have had the experiences of large groups of refugees who have been displaced from their traditional habitation, and moved to different places necessitating radical changes in their adjustment.
The social psychologist is definitely interested in studying the process by which a whole group of people learn to readjust themselves to totally new surroundings. These people often have to change their attitudes and behavioural patterns. Probably they are shifted to surroundings which are totally strange or alien.
A similar picture can be seen if a programme like ‘Family Planning’ is to be introduced to a remote rural community which has never thought in terms of family planning; where the belief has been that the greater the number of children, the greater is the security or that children are gifts of God.
Social psychologists usually make a study of the various beliefs, practices, attitudes and behaviour of the whole community, so that such conditions can be created, wherein positive futuristic attitudes can be introduced, without meeting with much of a resistance. Here again, questionnaires, rating scales, interviews and a variety of techniques can be used.
Thus, it can be seen that the case study method can be used at different levels and for different purposes. In fact a number of such cases can often help generate ideas or more controlled, laboratory and field studies. Used carefully the method can help us get lot of insight into the nature of different kinds of behaviour.
Method # 7. Survey Method:
Another major method employed in psychology is the survey method. This method is commonly employed in social psychology though other branches of psychology also employ it. The survey method is employed whenever we are interested in knowing how a particular behaviour is distributed among a group of people.
For example, if we want to understand the study habits of college students, then a survey is undertaken. Similarly, if we want to understand the opinions of workers on a certain legislation then a survey is undertaken. Surveys can be general, relating to the people at large or to specific groups like students or workers or housewives.
Surveys can be of two types. In some instances we can study all the people belonging to a particular community that we are interested in. Thus, if we want to study the reading habits of high school students in Hyderabad city, we can visit all the schools and collect information from all the students.
This type of survey is known as population survey or a census. On the other hand if we do not have the time and the facilities, we can just visit some of the schools and meet only some of the students. We can then arrive at our conclusion, assuming that these findings will not differ very much from the findings of a population survey had we undertaken one.
This type is called a sample survey and is a very common method. We have studied a sample (or one part) of the population. Manufacturing industries undertake consumer surveys to study the likes and dislikes of people on the basis of samples.
While the sample survey is much easier, great care has to be exercised in selecting the sample. Otherwise the findings of sample survey may not be true of a population. A number of techniques have been developed for selecting the right type of samples.
The reader will learn more about this if and when he studies psychology at a more advanced level. Sample surveys have been found to yield very accurate findings and predictions when carried out carefully. An instance is the forecast of the election results based on sample surveys.
In many researches, however, more than one method is employed. There are researches where the survey method, the case study method and the experimental method can be used together. The choice depends on the purpose of the research, the resources available and the time available.
The choice of the right method is very crucial in determining the quality of research. An outstanding example of this type are the Hawthorne Studies carried out by Elton Mayo and his colleagues where a variety of methods were employed.