Reference no: EM133306623

Part I

What is the difference between a Controlled Experiment and a Correlational Study? Why can an experiment allow for a cause-and-effect conclusion, while a correlational study cannot? Hint: it has something to do with how correlations are measured and experiments are conducted. If you don't remember the different research methods, you will want to go back to Chapter 1 and review the section on Research Methods in Psychology, and/or read the paragraph below, before writing your post response.

Controlled Experiments can be used to see if one thing causes another to happen - like if a vaccine causes there to be fewer cases of Covid - by giving one group of subjects (the control group) a placebo (fake vaccine) and the other group (the treatment group) the real thing, and keeping everything else about the two groups the same. Then, if there are fewer Covid cases in the treatment group, you can conclude that the vaccine was the thing that caused the cases to go down for the group that got the real treatment. Here, you have manipulated the treatment to see if it affects the response.

Correlational Studies, on the other hand, can only describe relationships between two variables, using a number called the correlation coefficient, designated by r. This "r" is a number between negative 1 and 1, which describes how closely related two variables are. For example, if you want to know if the amount of sleep students get is related to their academic success, you could look at the correlation coefficient, "r," between the two variables: SLEEP (the number of hours of sleep obtained the night before a test), and SCORE (number correct on the test). If the "r" between these two variables is close to 1 without going over (like .88 or .96 or .75 or something like that), that would mean more sleep is "positively correlated" with higher test scores (as one goes up the other also goes up), although it still wouldn't mean that more sleep causes higher test scores (see the difference?). If the number "r" is closer to zero (like -.12 or .22 or something like that), then you could conclude that there is not much of a relationship between SLEEP and SCORE. And if the "r" is closer to negative 1, like negative .86 or something, you could say that SLEEP and SCORE are negatively correlated (more sleep is correlated with lower test scores), but you still couldn't say that more sleep causes you to do worse on a test, just that the two variables have a negative relationship. Here, you haven't manipulated any variables, you are just looking at them. Now that you have read about these Research Methods, you should be able to answer the question in Part I.

Part II

A lot is happening these days as far as understanding the physiology of the brain. Your assignment is to keep your eyes and ears open to news about psychology, especially physiological psychology, and report what you find out about this topic to the class. For example, what are some of the new discoveries scientists have made recently about the brain? About behavioral genetics? Neurotransmitters? New drug therapies? New uses for old drug therapies? Brain functioning? (Note: these are just ideas, you don't have to find research for every category mentioned here.) Describe the research you've found, including the type of study that was carried out. Was it a Survey, a Case Study, a Correlational Study, a Controlled Experiment or Naturalistic Observation that was used to find out the new information about human behavior as it relates to the brain or physiological psychology?

In order to get the maximum points for this post, be sure to tell us where you got your information. Maybe you saw an interesting story on T.V., or listened to an expert on MPR (Minnesota Public Radio, FM 91.1 - an excellent source for news and information about just about anything). Maybe you saw an article in the newspaper or a recent edition of Psychology Today, or a psychological journal. Or maybe you looked up a website to get more information about a topic that piqued your interest when you were reading Chapter 2. Be specific about where you got your information. You must have two sources besides your textbook.