Psychological research refers to research that psychologists conduct for systematic study and for analysis of the experiences and behaviors of individuals or groups. Their research can have educational, occupational and clinical applications.
History
Wilhelm Wundt is credited as one of the founders of psychology. He created the first laboratory for psychological research.
Philosophical foundations
Ethical considerations
Psychological research risks harming the subjects of the research. In order to prevent that harm, proposed studies are usually approved by an Institutional review board to ensure that the risks to the research subjects are justified by the anticipated benefits IRBs also verify that Informed Consent has been obtained. This involves documenting that the subject (or legally authorized representative) agrees to being a subject after having been informed of what the research is about, risks and benefits to the subject, that the subject may discontinue participation at any time, and how personally identifiable information will be handled.
Some research, such as the Milgram experiment, have raised questions about the research ethics and resulted in the revision of the ethical standards of psychological research.
Methodology
Psychologists use many research methods, and categorical distinctions of these methods have emerged. Methods can be categorized by the kind of data they produce: qualitative or quantitative—and both these are used for pure or applied research.
Psychology tends to be eclectic, applying knowledge from other fields. Some of its methods are used within other areas of research, especially in the social and behavioural sciences.
Experimental methods
The field of psychology commonly uses experimental methods in what is known as experimental psychology. Researchers design experiments to test specific hypotheses (the deductive approach), or to evaluate functional relationships (the inductive approach).
The method of experimentation involves an experimenter changing some influence—the independent variable(IV)— on the research subjects, and studying the effects it produces on an expected aspect—the dependent variable (DV)— of the subjects behaviour or experience. Other variables researchers consider in experimentation are known as the extraneous variables, and are either controllable or confounding (more than one variable at play).
Confounding variables are external variables that are not taken into account when conducting an experiment. Because they are not controlled for, they can skew experiments results and provide a false or unreliable conclusion. For example, the psychologist Seymour Feshbach conducted an experiment to see how violence on television (the independent variable), affected aggression in adolescent boys (the dependent variable). He published his results in a paper called Television and Aggression in 1971. The paper showed that, in some cases, the lack of violence on television made the boys more aggressive. This was due to a confounding variable, which in this case was frustration. This means that extraneous variables are important to consider when designing experiments, and many methods have emerged to scientifically control them. For this reason, many experiments in psychology are conducted in laboratory conditions where they can be more strictly regulated.
Alternatively, some experiments are less controlled. Quasi-experiment's are those that a researcher sets up in a controlled environment, but does not control the independent variable. For example, Michael R. Cunningham used a quasi-experiment to "...measure the physical in physical attractiveness." On the other hand, in field experiments the experimenter controls an independent variable (making it the control variable), but does not control the environment where the experiment takes place. Experimenters sometimes apply fewer controls, as a way to lessen potential biases. In a true experiment, participants are randomly chosen to remove the chance of experimenter's bias.
Observational methods
Observational research, (a type of non-experimental, correlational research), involves the researcher observing the ongoing behavior of their subjects. There are multiple methods of observational research such as participant observations, non-participant observations and naturalistic observations.