In our first year of this course, we were told that we are not able to prove something as true, and because of this it will remain just a theory. We were also told about falsifying data, which means that we can disprove a theory, and something that cannot be disproved is therefore not scientific. If something is not regarded scientific then does this mean that it is not measureable? A very common example of this would be the highly controversial, does god exist, or the not so controversial, do fairies exist? I’d like to think that fairies exist, but because this cannot be observed or measured I will never know. If it were able to be measured then it is likely that it could either be disproved or not, and if this is the case then it is likely that this theory is significant or not.
So it would seem that this is a simple answer, because psychologists can’t measure the truth…or can they?
So what about when someone goes onto Jeremy Kyle and accuses their partner of having an affair with someone else, then they usually take a lie detector test. So could this be a measure of truth?
We know that it is usually impossible to measure covert behaviours, unless they are measured by the person who is experiencing them, but lie detectors measure the physiological effects, such as heart rate, respiration, blood pressure and skin conductivity. So although it is nicknamed a lie detector, it does not reveal that a person is telling lies, it just shows changes in the body.
Lie detectors are not just used on Jeremy Kyle; they are also used for more serious cases such as investigating crimes, or deciding whether a candidate for a job in security is suitable.
It all seems simple enough, you’re strapped up to this contraption and it measures your physiological responses, and can give an indication of whether or not you are lying, because generally when you become anxious, you’re heart rate increases. If I were in this situation I can imagine that I would be feeling quite anxious, not because I had lied about something, because I NEVER lies, but because I would feel pressured and accused, and worried that I may not pass the test.
However I don’t need to fear all of this, because from googling polygraph tests, I have discovered that I can actually pass a polygraph even if I had told a little white lie. From discovering that lie detectors can be bluffed, it suggests that the validity is very low. I came across a quote about the lack of validity that I quite liked, so I thought I’d share it with you; “Polygraph screening is completely without any theoretical foundation and has absolutely no validity…the diagnostic value of this type of testing is no more than that of astrology or tea-leaf reading” this quote came from Dr. Drew C. Richardson, who used to be a special agent. I won’t go through how you can cheat at a polygraph test, but I found this site that gives you some tips on how to pass even when you should really fail, http://www.wikihow.com/Cheat-a-Polygraph-Test-%28Lie-Detector%29 so you can take a look if you are interested or if you’re due to appear on the Jeremy Kyle show soon.
Polygraph tests can also encounter type one and two errors, it is thought that 10% who should fail the test in fact pass the test, and those that have done nothing but tell the truth are likely to fail the test, which shows that they are not reliable either.
So all in all, the polygraph test is not a reliable measure, does not have high validity and is actually considered unscientific as it is based on deceiving the person who is taking the test. So if you’re considering taking a lie detector or if you want to discover if fairies exist by questioning somebody who has claimed to have seen them, then you should think twice about it!
I think measuring the truth or lies (which can’t really be measured, so really it should be called a truth test), is something that psychologists are not able to measure even if they do have fancy equipment, it is just not considered scientific and for something to be measured and classed as a theory it needs to be.
http://www.apa.org/research/action/polygraph.aspx
http://www.ukskeptics.com/polygraph.php
The use of cannabis for medical use is a highly debated and researched topic, but it usually results in many mixed findings.
This is a highly controversial issue, and I realise that I am putting my head on the chopping block here, but all I can say is please be gentle.
I felt that this was an interesting topic to talk about because research shows so many mixed results, and I’d like to discuss the issue of mixed results briefly.
First of all I’d like to discuss the believed benefits of using cannabis as a medicinal substance, such as reducing the side effects of chemotherapy, arthritis and glaucoma to name but a few.
Cannabis is believed to help reduce the side effects of chemotherapy, as it reduces nausea and can allow those undergoing treatment to eat and make an attempt at living a normal life, however it is believed that it is no more effective than medicines that are already available to treat these side effects. Researchers were hopeful in 2007 that elements of cannabis known as cannabidiol (CBD), may be able to replace chemotherapy which would mean that patients would not suffer the side effects that come with chemotherapy. Cannabidiol is believed to stop cancer cell invasion, however it does not appear that it is any closer to being introduced as a treatment for cancer, but just scanning the results in Google it is clear to see that there has been a lot of research into this area.
It has also been found to help sufferers of arthritis, a research study found that cannabis was effective in relieving pain, and were safe to use, they did however state that more longitudinal research was needed in this area, but did find evidence that there were benefits in using cannabis (Lynch & Campbell, 2011).
Those are just a few of the research areas where there seems to be benefits in the use of cannabis, or more so the compounds within the drug, although smoking cannabis is used to reduce pain.
So what are the dangers of cannabis?
Well, according to the Medical Research Council researchers, smoking cannabis could potentially damage DNA which could leave an individual more at risk of developing cancer; however this is based on a person smoking an average of 3-4 joints a day. This highlights the damages that it could cause if a person were to smoke cannabis on a regular basis, and I’d imagine if a person was in a great deal of pain everyday they may smoke this much.
How about the compounds of cannabis, do they have dangers too?
I really struggled to find any major downsides for the use of the compounds for medical use, maybe it is because not enough research has been done in this area to assess the risks properly. However, Wang and colleagues found that the use of cannabidiol may cause relapses in terms of pain, vomiting, and dizziness. These are the kind of side effects that any of us may have after taking prescription drugs.
BUT after typing this I just read a really interesting article that has found that the medical use of cannabis can affect the working memory, this research mainly looked at the effects of THC which is some form of cannabidiol.
As you can see there is a lot of contradicting evidence for and against the medicinal use of cannabis. I should probably point out that cannabis is obviously illegal in the UK, which must point out the dangers that it carries. Although research does seem to highlight the benefits that the compounds of the drug has, but could all this research evidence cause confusion?
I think when there is a lot of research on a certain area that has produced a lot of different results; it may leave some people a bit jaded in the sense that they don’t know which is right. This area is a widely researched and has caused some debate, there are obviously some medical benefits to the compounds of this drug, but is the street drugs reputation overshadowing the advantages of the medicinal value?
In general though, I do believe if there are mixed results than it is bound to cause problems, it’s almost like when there is a case of rumours going round, and there are so many different versions to the story that you don’t know which the truth is.
Maybe in this case though because there is so much conflicting evidence maybe it should just be put to rest, as there are so many implications involved.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/health/emotional_health/addictions/cannabis.shtml
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/7098340.stm
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19914218
http://0-onlinelibrary.wiley.com.unicat.bangor.ac.uk/doi/10.1111/j.1365-2125.2011.03970.x/pdf
http://www.mrc.ac.uk/Newspublications/News/MRC006135
http://www.cmaj.ca/content/178/13/1669.full
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/03/120301143424.htm
In previous blogs I have mentioned that some researchers may show bias in their results, or may just twist what they found in their results to make it appear that it matches their hypothesis. But what about when researchers go to all that trouble of collecting data, and then explaining why they have a significant result, then a lovely newspaper journalist catches on to their report and BOOM it’s misinterpreted. So in a hypothetical situation say a researcher has done this, and made no biases in their research, and what they have found is pretty ground breaking stuff, but when this wonderful reporter comes along and doesn’t like what they have read, they turn THEIR opinion to appear like facts. The cheek!
It could be that journalists are just trying to draw attention to the general public about the importance of research. So for example although it may not seem like breakthrough science, it was reported back in 2003 how to make a perfect cup of tea. So although it may seem a bit pointless, I can imagine that a lot of people (including myself) may appreciate knowing this, as some of us do love a good cuppa, so it’s something that we can relate to. Another area of research that hit the news a good few years back, was that taking cod liver oil supplements helps the brain, needless to say that it was forced down my neck (can’t say that it helped much though). It is things like this though that helps bring research to the attention to the general public, so in terms of this it’s not too bad, although they may stretch the truth. I think that it is important that scientific research is made available to everyone, because after all it is meant to benefit EVERYONE.
But what about when a journalist takes the whole research out of context? Then this can be damaging for the researcher, as it presents research in a different light to what was intended. In 2010 The Sunday Times claimed that research had found that Blonde women born to be warrior princesses; it said that women with blonde hair were more likely to show a warlike streak, they attract attention and are more likely to get their own way. It all seems a bit bizarre; this is because it’s NOT TRUE. The research was actually looking at whether it was possible to tell the strength of a person by their voice when assessing fighting ability. Sell (2010), who was the main researcher, was angered by how the newspaper had taken his research out of context, especially as it didn’t even mention hair colour. Apparently the journalist admitted to Sell on the phone that he did make everything up, which I can imagine would anger many researchers, as they are doing this work to learn more and benefit people. If their work is shown in a false light it will lead the general public to believe that research of any kind is useless.
Useless research was highlighted by The Telegraph recently, and one research article that they rated as one of their top ten useless research studies, was suicide rates can be linked to country music. So, although it may seem like a pointless thing to study to some, it could be quite interesting to others. The newspaper does actually make the reader believe that country music causes people to commit suicide, but what the researcher was actually looking at and found that people who were already feeling suicidal were more likely to attempt suicide, because of the themes that are portrayed in country music. Just a final point on this; I’m not sure who decided they were useless bits of research, but the ones that they featured in their top ten were all winners of the Nobel awards. So were they really useless if they won an award?
So it is clear to see that newspapers can belittle the important research that is carried out, it also takes it out of context and can lead people to believe things that are not true.
There are positive sides to research being in the news as it is meant to be beneficial to everyone, and by printing or broadcasting it, it allows everyone to be aware of important areas of research. I know the examples that I have used may not be deemed important, but I hope that it gets my point across about how research can be misinterpreted, but it is also important for everyone to be aware of it, and not just the people that are involved in sciences.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/3016342.stm
http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/early/2010/06/14/rspb.2010.0769.full
http://liberalconspiracy.org/2010/01/27/s-times-article-on-blonde-warriors-was-fabricated/
Psychological research tends to make the assumption that if there is a significant effect in a sample, then it applies to the whole population regardless of whether that population were represented in the sample. Psychology isn’t the only area that generalises to the population, it appears in the news very often, they usually report the percentages of people out of jobs, or how much people agree with a certain opinion. But these are just generalisations and it is difficult to be certain that what a small sample of participants agree with, is what the overall population agree with.
I travel on the train a lot to get into Bangor, so when I saw a news article about how satisfied or dissatisfied commuters were with train services, I was quite interested to see what people’s opinions were on this matter. Especially as I have had a few bad experiences with travelling on trains, one was completely out of the train companies’ control, but still it almost resulted in me missing my stats exam. But I have to say that Arriva Trains Wales are pretty rubbish when it comes to being on time. Anyway, enough about me complaining about trains, let’s get back to the article that I read; it reported that 84% of passengers were satisfied with their journey. What struck me first was “I don’t agree with this”, then I thought who are the people that actually answer these surveys, as I was not one of them and I would have been more than happy to answer this type of survey. What I really don’t get is, how these surveys select a presumably small sample, and generalise it to all train commuters. I assume that I am not the only one who did not answer this survey, so how is it that this opinion represents what everyone thinks, when I’m guessing that the majority did not state their opinion.
My point is, a sample however big or small can’t possibly apply to the population. Psychology researchers use a sample of people, this is obviously the most possible and cheapest option compared to testing the whole population. So when we have tested our sample and have analysed our data, and we are lucky enough to get a significant result for the sample that we have tested, we assume that what is true of this group is likely to be true of other groups.
So I guess we all know that the larger the sample, the more likely it will be that we will find a statistically significant result. But surely even if we use a sample of a thousand people, we couldn’t really assume that the result could be applied to the UK, which has a population of about 62 million. Now, I guess that for certain things we wouldn’t be generalising for this amount, but back to the train survey (I have no idea how many people use trains), but I somehow doubt that only 16% were the only Arriva customers, and the rest were lucky enough to go on Virgin Trains (oh how I envy them). Anyway, enough about trains, but I hope that you see the point I am making (or trying to at least), even if it isn’t related to psychology.
The term universalism relates to generalisation, and is the idea that the significant results from psychological research can be fitting anywhere, and will be the same for all people, regardless of their society and culture. Some psychologists do argue this principle, and believe that a culturally specific approach would be more realistic. I guess a way to look at culturally specific research would be using qualitative methods.
Although psychological researchers are becoming more aware of this problem, they do not apply their awareness when they design and carry out their studies.
This issue could be one of the reasons why people struggle to consider some areas of psychology a science, at least with biological sciences there is usually concrete evidence, through the use of DNA samples for example. Please note that I am not disputing psychology as a science, I am merely making a point.
When analysing our data we set a 5% level, to assess whether the effect is likely to occur by chance. If it is likely to occur more than 5 times out of 100 by chance, it is non-significant (obviously we all know this by now), but my point is; I suppose by setting this level we are likely to be able to generalise.
In my opinion I think generalisation is very shaky, how on earth can we be sure our research can apply to the population such as the UK, especially when it contains all walks of life? At least it has been recognised by some psychologists, and I’m sure through the use of qualitative methods we are able to apply research to certain aspects of society and cultures.
Just think about this next time you read about a survey that suggests that you are included in the findings that they have reported, but you may feel like you don’t.
Howitt & Cramer, 2011
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-16740481
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-13985143
Owusu-Bempah & Howitt, 2000
Ethics is a topic that we come across often, especially when we are about to begin a study. Ethics are important as it ensures that we protect our participants, and it also ensures that our study is above board.
So what I’ll be looking at in this weeks’ blog are the ethical guidelines that are in place today, some studies that are not considered ethical, and a news article that has ‘concern for ethics’ written all over it.
The APA ethical guidelines state:
Informed Consent – participants must know that they are involved in research and
give their consent or permission
Deception – if the participants are deceived in any way about the nature of the
study, the deception must not be so extreme as to invalidate the informed consent.
Also, researchers must be very careful about the trauma deception may cause.
Coercion – participants cannot be coerced in any way to give consent to be in the
study.
Anonymity – the identities and actions of participants must not be revealed in any
way by the researcher.
Risk – participants cannot be placed at significant mental or physical risk. This
clause requires interpretation by the review board.
Debriefing Procedures – participants must be told of the purpose of the study and
provided with ways to contact the researchers about the results
It is clear to see that all these guidelines are needed; by following them we can protect our participants from physical or psychological harm. I suppose you could say that we as researchers are also protecting ourselves, because if we make sure that we follow the guidelines to a T then there should be no comeback, especially as the study would have been approved by an ethical committee. If we did not follow these guidelines then we would not be able to carry out the study, and if we did I think we would get more than a slap on the wrist.
The guidelines also state that we should fully inform our participants, but if we told them the aim of the study then we would probably not get the results that we were hoping for, as the participants may use this information to either help or hinder the results that we will collect, but by debriefing them ensures that they leave knowing the true aim of the study.
I do apologise for choosing the most obvious studies, I just thought that they were good examples for the issue of ethics, I know there are loads more examples out there but thought it would be good to use the ones we are all familiar with.
The first study that I will be discussing is the Milgram study, and I apologise if you are sick to death of hearing about this study, but I think that it is a good example.
So Milgram wanted to know whether people were just following morally wrong orders during Nazi Germany; and to find this out he designed a study where participants were always assigned the role of the teacher, who asked the learner questions and if they answered incorrectly the participant believed that they were administering shocks. I’m sure you are all aware of this study, so you will know that the shocks were not real and the learner was not a participant, and was just pretending to be in pain. What Milgram found was that a high level of participants followed out the orders to administer shocks. It does seem that this study is unethical, as the participants were not fully informed and were misled, there was also a chance that they could have suffered from psychological harm. However, this study was carried out in the 1960’s, before any solid ethical guidelines were in place and in Milgram’s defence he did actually consult a committee to ensure that this study was suitable to carry out. Although he did not fully inform them, he did ensure that they were fully debriefed as soon as the study had finished, and in terms of psychological damage only 1% reported that they regretted taking part in this study. This study doesn’t seem hugely unethical, I can see where there are patches that are unethical, such as deceiving the participants, but on a positive note they were not harmed apart from maybe a bit of anxiety. I sometimes get anxious in studies, obviously not for the same reason, but I always worry that I might be doing the study wrong and then I’ll mess up the results for them, so because I get a bit anxious does that mean there study would be considered unethical? Daft I know, but that’s just me. If this study had not been carried out then we would not know what we know now, and it could even be suggested that this study acted as a basis for ethical guidelines. If we do not push the boundaries once in a while then we will never know, and maybe we should be thankful to Milgram for being the one to push the boundaries, as we now have strong guidelines in place.
However a study that pushed the boundaries too far was the Zimbardo prison study, another study that I’m sure you all know about. In this study they were interested in finding out the psychological effects of a prisoner and guards were, to gain more of an insight in to how they conform to roles. It may be considered that the researchers got what they wanted, as the participants conformed to the roles of prisoners and guards. This study got out of hand, and resulted in long term psychological harm; some participants reported that they still felt traumatised from the experience months later. I think this study is a great example of why there are and needs to be ethical guidelines in place, as they ensure the protection of all the people that are involved in a study.
Since writing about the studies above, I have read about the governments’ plans for the NHS which involves us as patients being participants for medical research. What it is meant by this is that those who have medical conditions will provide answers for researchers who will be allowed access to their notes. The mind boggles at the thought of how this could actually be ethical, as they surely need to gain consent from the patients, but it’s seems there is an easy way out of this as patients can withdraw. But how many people are going to go through the trouble, to say they do not want some scientist (who could be anyone) having access to their notes. Patient concern has raised the issue of consent, and says that patients should give informed consent, and rightly so; how can it be ethical if we don’t give informed consent? Patient concern have also raised issues and concerns about this new proposal in regards to patient confidentiality, and has said that although the patient will not be known by name, they could be traced down by their postcode; how’s that for confidentiality huh? For someone who has a medical condition (I won’t go into it), I’m not sure if I would want people rumaging through my notes, which contain VERY personal information. Luckily if this legislation is passed, it won’t apply to me has I am a patient under NHS Wales, but nonetheless it does not change my views. I know that it’s basically the same with doctors and nurses, but at least they are helping you and helping you get better. I guess it could be argued that this is what the researcher is doing, and I can see how it could be a great way to find new treatments for cancers or rare conditions, but I can’t help think that it is invading peoples’ privacy. Also alarm bells start ringing, because how many incidents has there been, when files or laptops having gone missing with extremely important and confidential information on them? I’m not sure. Seems slightly unethical in my eyes, and I can’t see how it will work.
To wrap up this weeks’ blog, I’d like to say that ethics are important and essential for protecting everyone, and if the government get their way we may all be research participants soon. (well those who live in England anyway), but it just highlights how ethics and lack of can affect everyone, and that’s why they are in place. We are able to see how ethics have changed through trial and error, and although it is unfortunate for the people who have suffered as a result of this, we now have a good set of guidelines in place, to ensure that no one is hurt (at least I truly hope that is the case).
http://bxscience.enschool.org/ourpages/auto/2008/9/3/1220445713412/ethics.pdf
http://psychology.about.com/od/historyofpsychology/a/milgram.htm
http://www.experiment-resources.com/milgram-experiment-ethics.html
thewonderfulworldofstats 
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