There were lots of psychological research available in the library or even on-line. Choosing one is easy, but understanding its sense and reliability is another matter. Some studies tend to be incomplete, others just a result of playful minds. It gets more interesting if the topic of the research is concerned with uncommon subjects like sex, love, etc.
In our group, the problems tackled ranged from simple to complex. Mine was about people's risk of having an alcohol-use disorder (AUD) based on the density of their family history of alcoholism (FHA). I chose it because I can relate to it -not that I'm a drunkard when in fact, I only had a glass of gin during my whole years of existence- but through the sense that most of my relatives are heavy drinkers. The study included 293 females and 115 male undergraduates from a northeastern U.S. University who completed an anonymous survey. The researchers hypothesized that the greater the number of affected relatives, the greater the potential risk of developing an AUD. Of course, there are other potential risk factors besides FHA like behavioral under-control, age of onset of drinking (AOD), and cigarette. They concluded that college students who are heavy drinkers and have greater density of familial alcoholism are certainly at higher risk of continuing to drink in a problematic fashion after the college years.
One of my group mates chose a study about why people get disgusted with certain things. She chose the topic because it seems interesting and well, she got curious with the undertakings. The researchers' interest with the topic began during a talk in a university, where a professor dipped a sterilized cockroach in a glass of orange juice and asked for some volunteers to sip the juice. And expectedly, nobody dared to. So they hypothesized that when something that is perceived as disgusting is placed close to or touches something else (that is originally not perceived as disgusting), the latter might as well be infected and becomes less desirable or as disgusting as the former. They measured two variables which were product preference (disgusting/non-disgusting products) and the consumer's reaction, and it was done through lab observation. In the end, they concluded that the “non-disgusting” product's appeal tends to fall when it is placed beside or near products that are perceived as disgusting or serves a disgusting purpose (e.g. diapers, tampons, trash bags).
My other group mate chose a study about avoiding bad bargains. The researchers wanted to know what are the psychological processes that are involved when people decide to negotiate and in what way do communication and threats affect how people bargain with one another. The experiment was a little bit complicated. They used a game which forces 2 people to bargain with each other with a series of different conditions, wherein all the conditions are only slight variations. After the long experiment, the researchers were able to conclude that in bargaining, cooperative relationships have more positive results than competitive relationships. Communication allows people to bargain more effectively, because they are more likely to cooperate than those who do not communicate. Threats merely endanger relationships and do not contribute to a good negotiation.
The 3 studies used 3 different methods: the first one is correlational, the next one is descriptive, and the last was heavily experimental. For each of them, I found the operationalization appropriate like for the last study where they measured the effectivity of communication and threats through the profit of the players (the game was about trucking companies). The higher the profit, the better way for bargaining. The methods used were also appropriate like my chosen study for example. The researchers used survey because one's FHA is not observable. The participants have to state the information themselves. Lab observation definitely suits the second study because the researchers want to see the immediate reaction of the participants. I think the researchers have enough basis for their conclusions. Their methods were reliable in my point of view. Not only that, they also considered other factors that might affect the results of their study. They did not easily generalize. For the possible errors and biases, our group unanimously thought of the consequences of their sample spaces. Like in my chosen study, I noticed that the number of female respondents were greater than the males. That might have an effect on their conclusions.
If I were to choose the study I would participate in, the best one for me would probably be about the bargaining situation. I think it's very useful especially in real-life. Some of the insights that I liked about the study were these:
* Forcing parties to communicate, even if they already have the means to communicate, encourages mutually beneficial outcomes.
* In competitive relationships, communication should be aimed at increasing cooperation. Other methods will probably create more heat than light.
* Threats are dangerous, not only to other's interests, but also to our own.
References for the articles:
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1625167,00.html
http://www.spring.org.uk/2007/10/how-to-avoid-bad-bargain-dont-threaten.php
http://health.usnews.com/articles/health/healthday/2008/06/04/family-history-of-alcoholism-puts-student.html
Essay Checklist:
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