Conducting Research in Psychology: Measuring the Weight of Smoke » (3rd Edition)

Brett Pelham grew up as the second of six children outside the small town of Rossville, Georgia. Brett received his B.A. from Berry College in 1983 and received his Ph.D. from the University of Texas at Austin in 1989. He wrote the first edition of this book while working as an associate professor at UCLA, and he is currently an associate professor at SUNY, Buffalo. He studies person perception, stereotyping, social inference, and the self-concept. He teaches courses in social psychology, research methods, statistics, social cognition, and the self-concept. In his spare time, he enjoys juggling, painting, sculpting, listening to alternative rock music, cooking, and traveling. He doesn't enjoy weightlifting or running, but he occasionally does these things to compensate for a diet rich in Coca-Cola and Oreo cookies. His favorite activity is singing songs with his son Lincoln, who turned 2 in February of 2005. Impressively, Brett once placed fifth in the 1500 meters in the prestigious Southwestern U.S. Regional Master's Track and Field Championships in San Diego, CA. Less impressively, there was only one person in his age group who finished behind him. Nonetheless, he is still much faster than the other author of this book.

Hart Blanton grew up as the second of three children in a small town in Appalachian Virginia. Hart received his B.A. from Virginia Tech in 1990 and received his Ph.D. from Princeton University in 1994. He worked on the second edition of this book while at SUNY, Albany and the third edition while at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. In 2005, he joined the psychology department at Texas A&M in College Station, Texas. He studies group processes, self and identity, health psychology, social cognition, social influence, and social comparison. He has taught courses in research methods, social psychology, statistics, social comparison, and social influence. His diet consists of a wide variety of carbohydrates, but he cannot tell the difference between Coke and Pepsi. He has had just one Oreo in the past 10 years. This was eaten while working on the 3rd edition and under the close supervision of the 1st author. It was fine. He enjoys motorcycle trips in the summer and he recently made a resolution to become very good at pool. He enjoys weightlifting because he finds value in setting aside a chunk of time each day for a completely mindless goal pursuit. Unfortunately, he recently had to take three years off of heavy lifting in order to recover from a motorcycle wreck that was entirely someone else's fault. Despite the time off, he is still much stronger than the other author of this book.

Using humor and interesting examples that students can understand and relate to, authors Brett W. Pelham and Hart Blanton have written an informative and comprehensive research methods text that your students will really enjoy. This brief book includes hands-on activities that involve learning by doing, methodology exercises that encourage students to use their intuitions to understand research methods, and methodology problems that teach students to apply basic research principles to novel problems.

Booknews

Pelham (State University of New York, Buffalo) and Blanton (University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill) use narrative descriptions, examples, anecdotes, graphs, and sometimes cartoons to illustrate basic research principles. They also provide exercises to reinforce important concepts and methodological points. Chapters cover the basis of knowledge, the process of discovery, validity and reliability, threats to validity, various types of research design, statistics, reporting, and methodological problems. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

1. How Do We Know?
2.How Do We Find Out? The Logic, Art, and Ethics of Scientific Discovery.
3.Moving From Fact to Truth: Validity, Reliability, and Measurement.
4.Moving From Notions to Numbers: Psychological Measurement.
5.How Do We Misinterpret? Common Threats to Validity.
6.Nonexperimental Research Designs.
7.Experience Carefully Planned: Experimental Research Designs.
8.Experience Carefully Exploited: Quasi-Experimental Research Designs.
9.Choosing the Right Research Design.
10.A Brief Course in Statistics.
11.Telling the World About It.
12.Putting Your Knowledge to Work: 20 Methodology Problems.

Appendix
1.Hands-On Activities.

Appendix
2.Methodology Exercises.

Appendix
3.How to Describe the Results of Statistical Analyses.

Appendix
4.The Role of Status in Producing Depressed Entitlement in Women's and Men's Pay Allocations. Glossary. References. Name
Index. Subject
Index.