Introductory Psychology Class #1—In-Class Activity—Studying college student binge drinking

F17 PSY101 Introductory Psychology

Class #1—In-Class Activity—Studying college student binge drinking

Our activity today will focus on how binge drinking affects college students; you will work in your groups to

develop some ideas about how to design research studies to analyze the effects of binge drinking on college

students’ mental activity or their behavior.

PART 1: How different psychology subfields would view a research problem

Your text uses the following table to illustrate the different research interests between the various subfields in

psychology. Throughout the semester we will be examining each of these subfields in more depth. For now, it

may be helpful to get a basic idea of how the different subfields would approach a research problem

differently.

• How would various subfields in psychology research why do college students engage in binge drinking OR

the affect that binge drinking has upon a college student’s affect, behavior, or cognition?

• In your groups, come up with an example of a research question that would be posed by researchers in the

various subfields of psychology.

SUBFIELD

RESEARCH INTERESTS

WRITE AN EXAMPLE OF A RESEARCH

QUESTION

Biological psychology

Study how biological systems give rise

to mental activity.

How do college students brain cells

change when you drink?

Cognitive

psychology/neuroscience

Study attention, perception, memory,

problem solving, and language, often

based on brain processes.

How does drinking affect how college

students well drive?

Developmental

psychology

Study how people change from infancy

through old age.

How is the development of college

students affected by drinking?

Personality psychology

Study enduring characteristics that

people display over time and across

circumstances.

How does drinking affect college

student’s personality over time?

Social psychology

Study how people are affected by

others.

How is the college student affected by

the pressure of drinking from others?

Cultural psychology

Study how people are influenced by the

societal rules that dictate behavior in

their cultures.

How does fitting in the college

community of drinking affect the

college students?

Clinical psychology

Study the factors that cause

psychological disorders and the best

methods to treat them.

Does drinking cause college students

to have psychological disorders?

Industrial organizational

psychology

Study issues pertaining to industry and

the workplace.

How does drinking affect a college

students studying habits and work?

PART 2: Designing research studies

Now that you have seen how different subfields in psychology approach a research problem, it is time to

examine the process by which research is performed. According to your text, there are five steps in the

scientific method. They are:

Step 1: Focus on a theory

Step 2: State a hypothesis

Step 3: Test with a research method

Step 4: Analyze the data

Step 5: Report results and embark on further inquiry

Each one of the subfields of psychology have different theories about human mental activity and behavior.

Throughout the course, you will learn some of the theories of psychology from these different disciplines.

For now, we will bypass the first step of the scientific method. We will also bypass Steps 4 and 5. Both of these

steps are done after the researcher collects data. Step 4 is where the researcher uses different kinds of data

analysis techniques to determine if there are any important or significant patterns in the data. If there are

significant patterns, then often times the researcher moves to Step 5 in which he/she presents the findings

either by writing a journal article or sharing it with a group, perhaps at a research conference.

In your groups, you will work on Steps 2 and 3—these two stages are where researchers can make a lot of

decisions about what they want to study and how they want to go about it.

In your groups, you will develop a hypothesis and then examine the different methods of performing a

scientific study.

Step 2: State a hypothesis. In your group you will come up with a hypothesis statement that you want to

research. This is perhaps the most challenging part of the research process. As the book states, a hypothesis is

a specific, testable prediction about a theory. Usually a hypothesis is based on an extensive review of research