Home

Exemplary Articles in the Field of Psychology

Psychology is the scientific study of the mind and behaviour. Scientists in the discipline of psychology are most often interested in the physiology of the brain and nervous systems, how and why we act the way we do, and how we can alter ourselves and the environment for a beneficial outcome.

It is often hard to study an entire population; therefore, random samples are generally used for studies. Many methods are considered legitimate and used to give insight into a topic of interest. Psychological assessments, surveys, case studies (i.e. the examination of an individual or small group in extensive detail), naturalistic observation, and laboratory experiments are all very common examples. In order for a study to be effective, the methodology has to be applicable to what you are studying. For instance, a researcher should not ask a participant to fill out a survey if they are interested in how rods and cones in the retina specifically respond to different light.

Although nothing in science can truly be proved and considered a “fact”, relationships between variables, theories, and ideas may be generally accepted with enough support from research. Findings from studies are published in articles and books. The form of English used in psychological articles is more complicated than what may be seen in a newspaper, but that is generally due to the vocabulary used that is common to psychologists (e.g. names for structures and regions associated with the brain).

Scoville, W. B., & Milner, B. (1957). Loss of recent memory after bilateral hippocampal lesions. Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery & Psychiatry, 20, 11-21. doi: 10.1136/jnnp.20.1.11

In the journal article written by Scoville and Milner, the cases of ten patients with different degrees of hippocampal damage were examined. The psychologists were interested in seeing the effect of destruction to the hippocampus on memory. After years of follow-up studies on the ten people, the researchers found that bilateral lesions to the hippocampal region did indeed affect recent memory. They also concluded that there is a positive relationship between the amount of damage to the hippocampus and the extent of memory impairment.

It is sometimes very hard to discover specific functions that different parts of the brain exhibit, but one common method to do so is the use of case studies. Like the findings in Scoville and Milner’s case study, one may find that a person has lost a capacity after damage to a certain area in the brain. It may then be concluded that the area of the brain that underwent the damage usually has that particular function. Although case studies cannot necessarily write something in stone, the findings are usually well-accepted and assist greatly with psychological research.

Milgram, S. (1963). Behavioural study of obedience. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 67, 371-378. doi:10.1037/h0040525

Stanley Milgram performed an experiment on a group of forty men at Yale University to learn about obedience. He received participants by posting a notice in the newspaper and putting flyers in the mail asking for men to partake in a study on learning and memory. Each time the experiment ran one participant and one accomplice were given instructions from a paid “experimenter”. Although assignments were drawn out of a hat, the “random assignment” of roles was rigged. The accomplice was always the “learner” and the participant was always the “teacher”. Advised that shocking the “learner” would give information about how much punishment aided the learning process, the “teacher” was to apply a shock every time the “learner” recalled something incorrectly. The “experimenter” strongly encouraged the shocks throughout the process and was at times very authoritative in his commands. Although the accomplice was not actually being shocked in the other room, the participant did not know what was happening behind the closed doors. Responses of screaming and pounding on the wall could be heard, and the participants became tenser as they administered higher levels of shock. Of the forty men who participated, twenty-six gave the highest possible shock. The participants were much more obedient than expected, which may have been due to the authority figure known as the “experimenter”.

In my opinion, Milgram’s study could be considered exemplary based on the way he ran the experiment. Everything was set up very well and there was an excellent cover story. Often with psychological studies, experimenters try to keep the purpose of the study concealed until after the experiment is over. It is sometimes hard to do so, but it helps to keep the amount of bias to a minimum and the findings more realistic. However, there is always extensive debriefing afterwards.

Blackwell, B., Bloomfield, S. S., & Buncher, C. R. (1972). Demonstration to medical students of placebo responses and non-drug factors. The Lancet, 229, 1279 – 1282. doi: 10.1016/S0140-6736(72)90996-8

The study by these men is exemplary in the sense that it reveals the power of placebos and how useful they can be in psychological studies. Medical students took one or two red pills or one or two blue pills and were told that they were either sedatives or stimulants. The students commented that the effect was stronger when two pills were taken compared to one. However, their minds actually tricked them into believing the pills were truly sedatives or stimulants; both of the pills were placebos.

Studies using placebos are widely accepted. They are particularly useful in situations in which medications are being tested to see the differences in therapeutic responses to a pill containing medication and pill made of sugar. In a lot of psychological studies, there are experimental groups and control groups to see how results vary when conditions differ. Placebo effect studies also have groups experiencing different conditions and the placebo group may be considered to be the control group. These types of studies are often single-blind (i.e. subject doesn’t know what condition they are assigned) or double-blind (i.e. neither subject nor experiment administrator know who has been assigned each condition), which helps to remove bias from the experiment.