EVALUATIING PSYCHOLOGICAL RESEARCH

Evaluating psychological research

Evaluating psychological research

Introduction

Psychology is an extensive field of study that deals with all functions and behaviours dealing pertaining to human mind. It assess human mental functions regarding to perception, cognition, brain functioning, personality, attention, emotion, motivation, phenomenology, interpersonal relationships, social and behavioural approaches. It is a field of extensive research and study pertaining to these fundamental functions that attempt to understand, comprehend, analyse and predict future behaviours of an individual.

In context of, cognitive psychology studies how an individual remembers, thinks, speaks, perceives, as well as, solves problems. It studies how we tend to forget things quickly, and determines the factors behind that. The research of Peterson and Peterson pertains to Cognitive psychology the research of human memory and remembrance. It deals with the decay and decline of short term memory in humans, as well as, conducts an experimental research to verify the approach. Whereas, the Milgram experiment pertains to social psychology and assess how obedience to authority takes place when an authority figure is present, irrespective, of the tendencies of personal conscious. The field of social psychology deals with the interaction of humans and their surroundings. Both researches are extremely important with regard to their respective field. Although historic, they are still regarded valid and applicable.

The theme of the paper is to evaluate two renowned researches of psychology. The paper pertains to both these researches, in context of, cognitive psychology to Peterson and Peterson, whereas, Milgram experiment in social psychology. Both researches are extensively applicable and validated till this day. Therefore, the paper evaluates and assesses the researches on fundamental grounds which include internal validity, external validity, ethical considerations, comparison with other similar researches, and lastly, the support given to the theory. The paper presents the research studies, as well as, the evaluations in detail. It also presents the importance of researches in context of social psychology and cognitive psychology.

Discussion

Peterson and Peterson

Description of the research

The research deals with the field of cognitive psychology that deals with thinking processes of a human being. It assesses the duration of short term memory and studies the factors that lead to its quick withdrawal from human mind (Cardwell & Phanagan, pp. 4-12).

Procedure of the research

The research was conducted with 24 students of the Indiana University as the participants. These participants were evaluated on their recall capabilities. The experimenter sat down at the right hand side of each participant, and said the words of a trigram, loudly. After finishing, the participant was made to count in backward manner. When a red light was switched on, the participant was asked to recall the trigram. The light signalled at different intervals, that is, 3 seconds to 18 seconds. The research was repeated with 48 participants (Cardwell & Phanagan, pp. 4-12).

Result and findings

It was found out that, in shorter intervals, it was much harder to recall and trace the trigram, than in the longer intervals. They found an inverse relation between time and correctness of ...