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Sample Research and Reflection Questions
These are some ideas for research questions which you can use, or you can come up with them on your
own. I find that some students have a hard time deciding what to write about, so I hope this is a helpful
resource.
Experimental Methods
What is the purpose of ethical standards in psychological research? What are some examples of
unethical practices in research? How could those studies have been changed so that they were
conducted ethically?
What is the difference between a descriptive and an experimental design? Can you find and describe
any examples of descriptive studies that inappropriately imply causality between variables?
Biological Psychology
Describe Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE). Why is CTE controversial, and what does it say
about the relationship between brain biology and behavior? How does it relate to the case of Phineas
Gage?
A more philosophical question: How does neuroscience impact our ideas about what it means to be
human? Does it change, replace, or merely expand on medieval ideas about the soul, personality, and
consciousness?
Sensation and Perception
Describe the process of pain perception. What purpose is served by having two different pathways for
the sensation of pain? How do psychological factors affect the perception of pain?
Describe the Carpentered-world hypothesis. How might cultural or ethnic differences affect how people
are affected by different visual perceptual illusions?
Variations of Consciousness
How does sleep deprivation effect your emotions in the short-term and long-term? Are there any
benefits to increased or decreased sleep?
Is there any legitimacy to Freud’s explanation of dreams?Describe sleepwalking. What are the causes?
Are there any cases where sleepwalkers committed a violent crime, only to be acquitted because they
were asleep? What explanations were given?
Learning and Conditioning
Describe operant conditioning and the basic ideas of punishment and reinforcement. How does
something like spanking a misbehaving child fit in to this model? Does spanking work?
Is there any relationship between operant conditioning and domestic violence? How might operant
conditioning explain the dynamic between abuser and abused?
Memory
What does the work of Elizabeth Loftus tell us about the nature of memory? Do concepts such as
imagination inflation, memory misattribution, or the misinformation effect challenge the idea of
reliable memory?
What is hyperthymesia? How does science explain things like eidetic memory, or the exceptional
memory of individuals with autism or other developmental disorders?
Language and Cognition
What is the linguistic relativity hypothesis? What is the controversy surrounding this concept, and why
is it a big deal? Are concepts like this inherently racially biased, or is there some merit to them?
What is the language acquizition device? Summarize nativist and behaviorist theories of language
development and relate them to the cases of Genie and Isabella.
Intelligence and Intelligence Testing
What are some of the problems inherent in intelligence testing? Does racial bias exist in standardized
intelligence tests like the WAIS and Stanford-Binet?
Is there any scientific validity to alternative intelligence theories, such as those poposed by Sternberg or
Gardner?
Motivation and Emotion
How do biological explanations of eating behaviors explain problems with weight gain or loss? How
are eating disorders explained by biology?
Distinguish between sex, gender, and sexual orientation. What are some biological, social, and
psychological factors that affect the expression of gender and sexual orientation?
Lifespan Development
What are the implications of Bowlby and Ainsworth’s attachment research in a society where many
children are raised by caretakers other than their parents?
How do we develop a gender identity? What are the biological, social, and psychological factors that
influence gender development?
Social Psychology
Describe Zimbardo’s prison study. How might this explain events like the abuses at Abu Ghraib, or
something more mundane such as team loyalty?
What are diffusion of responsibility and the bystander effect? How might they contribute to events such
as riots or the Kitty Genovese incident? How do these effect the likelihood that you will help a stranger
in distress?
Describe the Milgram study. What does it imply about our psychological response to authority? What
evidence is there that we are “wired” to respond to authority? Does this explain the behavior of soldiers
who are “just following orders” when they commit inhumane acts?
Stress, Health, and Coping
What are some of the factors that influence your response to stress and your ability to control it? How
is something like “explanatory style” related to some of the cognitive attributional styles we saw in
chapter 10?
Why are “transitional” events (such as death, marriage, moving, or changing jobs) so stressful? Is there
an underlying connection between these events?
Abnormal Behavior
Are psychological disorders over-diagnosed? What about illnesses such as ADD/ADHD or Autism?
What are the advantages and disadvantages of a diagnosis?
What are some of the major theories about the development and prevention of eating disorders? What
is “manorexia” and how is it different from anorexia?
How have views of mental illness changed in the last 500 years or so? How were mental illnesses
treated in the past? How does our modern understanding of mental illness affect our perception of
things like demonic possession or religious visions?
Psychotherapy and Psychopharmacology
How did the advent of atypical anti-psychotic medications contribute to the homeless crisis in the
1970’s and 80’s? What are the benefits or disadvantages of deinstitutionalization?
Are any therapies more effective than the others? What did Hans Eysenck have to say about the
effectiveness of psychotherapy? Which form of therapy do you think is the most effective?