Correlations: Too boring to think of a title for…

Greetings my brain-box disciples! How’s life going? Fabulous.

This week I will be touching on a wholly dull and atypically uncontroversial topic, correlations!

Having studied statistics for one and a half years I feel you are all qualified to tell me what this graph suggests, take a moment if you need it. Done? Being the kind of learned student who brushes their teeth every morning with more difficult conundrums than this, you will probably scoff at my ignorant younger self. I would’ve taken one look at this and confidently declared that the more lemons the USA had imported, the fewer fatal highway crashes there would be as a result. Thanks past me, not the first time you’ve screwed me over! Many graphs like this exist and are quite funny to look at, apart from one linking an increase in the number of pirates and global warming…never mess with pirate stats.

You no doubt have correctly concluded that correlation does not imply causation. Maybe you’re curious as to how this blog is even worth your time? Am I going to tell you anything vaguely worthwhile? I believe this is useful to society at large, as franky, many people are not aware of the fallacies that surround correlation (not to say my blog is specifically useful to society, but the general publication of factually correct information). I refuse to live in a world where the news print a graph and use it to justify to the unlearned something that is statistically unsound. So you can receive this blog in 3 ways:

1. A ineffectual attempt to educate the masses
2. A gentle exploration of the usefulness of correlation designs
3. A shorter blog than normal to trawl through

Correlational research cannot imply causation as that is not what it is trying to find. Correlations are purely used to see if there is any discernible relationship between variables, not whether A caused B. Two issues arise once you try to venture down that avenue:

Direction – Did A cause B or B cause A? Does a broken family cause depression or does depression cause a broken family?

Third variable issue – Are both variables influenced by a third, unknown variable?

Therefore, because correlations do not give any information in regard to the direction of the relationship or even whether it is an influential relationship, it is an invalid assumption that we can learn anything causal from a correlation.

A second issue is related to the assumed linearity of a correlation, critics have suggested that the Pearson Correlation does not completely characterise the relationship between the two variables. Anscombe demonstrated this with his quartet, a set of scatterplots that all have the same mean, standard deviation, correlation, and regression line. You will note that all of the datasets are completely different and that the numbers have not necessarily explained the relationship.

So what are the values of correlational research? If it can’t tell us anything about the cause, is it a largely redundant statistical endeavour? Stanovich (2007) suggests that firstly, most scientific hypotheses are stated in terms of correlation and are therefore crucial to studies; secondly, that correlation research can indicate the correct direction for research into causation, whether the results of a study produce a strong correlation or not. If we can link two variables together, then we can darn sure design further research to explore that relationship. Likewise if two variables do not correlate then we can take our research elsewhere. So while correlation studies don’t find the root variable themselves, they are a key stepping-stone to finding it.

Will try and rack my brain for something super awesome to blog about next time.

Laterz geek squad.

Statistics: Are They Significant?

Yo! How are we doing stats nerds? Good? Great…

                              SIGNIFICANCE

                                                                POWER

Wildcard week is a bit of a bitch as I’m actually forced to think of something interesting to blog about, but I persevere! Whilst randomly searching things like ‘statistics, statistics = stupid, p = I hate liiiife’ into google I came across an idea I’d never considered before. What if I don’t need statistics? Hear me out, you may go through the same existential, life-evaluating crisis I did but please try to hold on to your sanity. Since I started studying psychology, statistics have been everywhere and like me you may have thought that science = stats. I’m joking, of course you wouldn’t! You’re clever, critical and beautiful whilst I am ugly and reduce everything to its bare bones to make things easy for myself. Incidentally, does anyone think that stats genuinely do equal science? Let me know. As far as I’m concerned, it’s what the statistics represent that make science so scientific; we can show through statistics that our results are unlikely to have happened by chance i.e. in the case of rejecting a null hypothesis, there is less than a 5% chance of the null hypothesis ACTUALLY being true and of a Type I error occuring (false positive). Lovely, science has been done! Our conclusions are based on rock-solid numbers and probabilities rather than guesstimates and intuition.

But, should statistical significance be significant? There has been a number of concerns raised over the limitations of this approach. A significant result allows us to say ‘these results are unlikely if the null hypothesis is true’, however, this leads us into the trap of inferring that there is less than a 5% chance of the null hypothesis being true. This is not the case as our statistics are based on the data, and do not test the null hypothesis. It’s sort of like saying:

Hypothesis: All psychology students are awesome

Stats: There is less than a 5% chance we would have found the results we did if psychology students weren’t actually awesome

THEREFORE

There is less than a 5% chance that psychology students aren’t awesome

Our tests allow us to make decisions about our data, but they do not allow us to do anything more than infer conclusions about the null hypothesis.

Perhaps the biggest problem is that a significant treatment effect doesn’t necessarily indicate a practical treatment effect. Would you want to use a drug that has been shown to have shown some effect but not a very large one? McClean and Ernest (1998) advocate the usefulness of effect size tests and stated that they could not find an article that argued against their usefulness, which suggests they have greater validity than the ‘controversial’ significance tests. However, Robinson and Levin (1997) have argued that statistical significance must always be tested for first before testing for effect size. As a psychology student, you may feel this is the way you have been taught to operate as well. Thompson (1998) considers whether you should not publish the findings of your study if your results show a moderate effect but are only significant to p < .06. And further goes on to suggest that this way of thinking is the fault of the publishing body (APA) and will discourage researchers from publishing effective studies if they are not significant enough.

Nakagawa (2004) contests that the rigorous testing of the significance of a result is leading to more Type II errors (false negatives). For example, he suggests that there is no consensus on when to use bonferroni tests (Perneger, 1998) and that due to their tendency to make significant results less significant, they add to a culture in which researchers are reluctant to report nonsignificant findings (Jennions & Moller, 2002). Sadly, we as humans are all too ready to beat ourselves up, when in fact a nonsignificant finding can tell us something useful. Most obviously, it can show us that something DOESN’T work, which can be useful in itself. Or, as Nakagawa goes on to explain, your findings could be found to be significant in the future.

Let me set the scene.

You’ve done an experiment, this experiment tests 10 variables (because you’re a clever bastard).

2 out of the 10 variables are found to be statistically significant.

Do you just publish your findings regarding the 2 variables or throw the whole darn kitchen sink at the publisher?

It may be tempting to only report your significant successes for fear of criticism.

But Nakagawa says that the full paper is of far greater use to the scientific community as your research adds to the pile and subject to a meta-analysis your work could help in discovering a significant effect, which is only apparent in the context of other research.

So where does this leave us? Is statistical significance important? Or are there just too many problems with the process? Is it a logical measure of probability? The fact that the debate has not been settled can only indicate that there are problems with it. Maybe effect size is a more useful indicator of efficacy than significance, and should be used exclusively?

The debate won’t be settled any time soon but based on current evidence we can only conclude that effect size and testing are at least as important as each other and it would be interesting to see whether they could survive without each other.

That was far too heavy for my liking, so to make up for it here’s a cat doing an impression of me when I was reading all this crap

Are Ethics Rubbish?

Hello nerdaphiles! How is it? Splendid.

This week, we’re going to discuss ethics! Woo…

Once upon a time there was a group of nasty people called the ‘nazis’. Among other things, these ‘nazis’ conducted inhumane experiments on the prisoners of their concentration camps; leading to death, disfigurement and disability. 

I’m aware this is a touchy subject but never fear, the nazis are gone…mostly. So here’s a picture of a cat to make everyone feel better.

Anyway, the goodies won and the nazis that committed these atrocities were put to trial, but what’s the point? These events led to the formulation of the Nuremberg Code (1947). Before then there had simply not been a discernible code of conduct for experimenting on humans. The Nuremberg Code particularly enunciated the need for voluntary informed consent, the need to weigh the pros of experimentation against the cons and the avoidance of suffering. This moulding of the post-World War II era was instrumental in balancing human rights and scientific endeavour. The Declaration of Helsinki (1974) built on the foundations of the Nuremberg Code to further refine the rules and most importantly to me (as a psychology student) has led to the formulation of the five general ethical principles of psychology, from which all other ethical rules sprout from. This is all well and good, there SHOULD be rules, especially in a field where someone fiddles with your brain. However, to me the ethical principles are not ALL sensible; they lead to problems and have the potential to hinder science. For the purposes of this blog I’m going to focus on principle A as, to be fair, I just find many of the other general principles to be too darn sensible to debate in an interesting way.

Lets have a look:

Principle A: Beneficience and Nonmaleficience

• Psychologists must safeguard the welfare and rights of both humans and animals

Safeguarding the welfare and rights of humans and animals is a given, right? No, I want to experiment on all of you and your pets in cruel ways. Just kidding… Or am I?!

Beginning with humans, how far can we go with our research before we break rights and damage the welfare of a person?

In the world of medicine the boundaries of how far you can push a person are perhaps more apparent, but in the new world of psychology, such boundaries seem blurred. Can you tell when you’ve upset someone? How about when you’ve upset someone too much? How about when you’ve upset someone to the lengths of being unethical? Do these lines apply to everyone? Psychological processes are a tough enough thing to establish and measure without having ambiguous rules over how much harm you can dish out to a willing patient.

Could the safeguarding of people and animals be sciences loss?

Milgram’s experiment would not have happened had he wanted to do the experiment today, this would have denied us all the knowledge that under certain conditions people can be coerced into being killers. Naysayers may suggest that this would have come out anyway, however, Milgram found through a poll that senior psychology-majors thought that 1.2% of ‘teachers’ would inflict maximum voltage. So why would anyone do the research? Even if someone did decide to research this area no thought experiment is quite as good as pressing the KILL button. I should point out that several of the ‘teachers’ did endure psychological and in some cases physical damage, but follow-ups indicated these were not long-lasting.

SO should this experiment never have happened? The ‘participants’ at the time may have felt so, but have we as a scientific community gained from knowing that 65% on average (YES I KNOW IT’S ONLY ONE STUDY BUT IT’S STILL INTERESTING AND PERHAPS EVEN INDICATIVE) have the capability to kill when instructed. You may think that research like this is not useful to us as a society, nothing more than fancy trivia. But think how experiments like these expand our understanding of things, certain ‘unethical’ behaviourist experiments have led us to treatments which may not have been apparent had the research not been conducted in a world that thought all psychology was biological.

NOW animal rights, a hot topic with lots of potential for losing friends. Is it ethical to cut up a kitten? From a deontological point of you, no. But without animal research where would we be? Animal research has led us to countless discoveries, which have benefitted a huge amount of people. Here’s a pretty timeline to show you the scale of how much animals have helped us:

http://www.understandinganimalresearch.org.uk/your_health/timeline

We can all agree that in terms of psychological research animals already have less rights than us, seeing as humans are never (usually) imprisoned and killed. But does the fact that animals have no way to consent mean that we should automatically discount them as an experimental resource and should all testing be performed in vitro? Bateson formed the ‘decision cube’ to deal with the issue of pain versus certainty of scientific benefit, which really gets to the crux of the matter. Balances like this lead to less trials and less trials can only lead to decreased certainty, so is there any practical value in saying that animal pain is acceptable if you’re SURE that drug X will work? Deontologists among you readers may believe that animals have the same inherent value as humans, but ask yourselves:

Would you kill/psychologically damage 5000 animals to save 5000 humans?

Would you kill/psychologically damage 5000 animals to save 100 humans? (Yes, I realise that the amount of humans may actually be greater if we assume that drug X cures some kind of horrible disease, which would mean the ‘saving’ of unborn lives but stay with me!)

Would you maim/destroy your kitten to save your life?

Would you maim/destroy a fly to save your life?

These kinds of questions are fun and really test your moral fibre!

The fact is that animal research is very well controlled and that the ‘lowest life-forms’ are the ones to bite the bullet. Instinctively it is wrong to kill, but maybe it is just as wrong to passively allow people to die.

This is the longest blog ever and I’m deeply sorry about that, but ethics just riles me up so much that I want to vomit every thought in my little head on to the interweb.

Feel free to hate me.

Until the next time dedicated nerd-lingers!

Animal Research: A Necessary Evil?

Hello there bloglodytes! How are we? Sensational.

This week I’m going to return to the controversial topic of animal research. Avid fans among you may recall that I touched on this issue in a previous post, however, I have decided that the topic deserved a fuller entry. The animal research debate is among one of the most important of our time. Without it, the whole face of scientific research changes, we enter an epoch of exclusive human and in vitro testing. With it, surely the strength of the boundaries of ethical research will be tested; leading to debate around the methodology of animal testing, rather than the philosophy. In short, it is something that must be decided in order to prevent both the limiting of productive research and the potential allowance of dangerous research. So, are you okay with it?

PETA, as I’m sure many of you are aware, take a very absolutist stance. 5 minutes on their website will basically let you know what they’re about, no abuse of animals under any circumstances. I find the absolutist stance to be dangerous, to take any absolute view often reflects a lack of appreciation for the complexity of the situation. Whilst Gray argues that a lot of animal rights institutions are too focused on research whilst ignoring farming and pet ethics, PETA is very even-handed in its condemnation of animal injustice. One of the most dangerous aspects of PETA’s campaign is its ability to appeal to our emotions, occasionally at the expense of verifiable fact. A perusal of the references below will show you how this site, to the ends of heightening our emotions, makes unfounded claims ranging from the tear-jerking to the ridiculous. To give you a flavour, they claim that discoveries made via animals only translate to humans 25% of the time; whilst there is some truth in this, the article goes on to say that in some cases you may as well flip a coin; as stats students I’m sure your head is simply buzzing at this assertion. Furthermore they claim that animal research has hindered scientific progression, leading us astray with the polio vaccine and many other breakthroughs. The Royal Society confirmed this is simply not true, and that synthesising of the polio vaccine was largely thanks to experiments on mice and monkeys. Further arguments contest that these cures are tested on humans anyway, in vitro testing has a far greater efficacy, and that since the advent of animal testing the developed states are in fact worse off in terms of health. To both suggest that since we test on humans anyway and should skip the animal testing is ludicrous; and to further associate a decline in health-related statistics with an increase in animal testing is to trivialise the real issues. As for the in vitro argument, The Royal Society have argued that isolated testing of certain extracted cells simply does not give a clear enough picture of how treatments may affect complex organisms, asserting there is a far higher efficacy to be found in animal testing. There is a wealth of argument to be read out there, a lot of it on the PETA links I provide below and I urge you to read them; to either find your own flaws or possibly mine, but having actually read this absolutist, ‘altruistic’ site I can only conclude that though they carry the flag of morality, the arguments they employ are reductionistic.

Jeremy Bentham, philosopher and politician contested that ”The question is not ‘Can they reason?’ nor ‘Can they talk?’ but ‘Can they suffer?’” Newkirk argues, ”When it comes to pain, love, joy, loneliness and fear, a rat is a pig is a dog is a boy. Each one values his or her life and fights the knife”. These quotes reflect the heart of this argument, which is speciesism. Can we consider ourselves to decide the purpose of other animals based on appearance? Ryder (1990) describes this as “discrimination and exploitation based upon a difference in species”. Possibly dating back to an indirect clash of philosophies between Descartes and Darwin, the former likening animals to machines without souls, and the latter seeing humans as only quantitatively different from other species. Gray suggests that it is our responsibility to our own species to do our best to benefit it, even at the expense of others. Singer disagrees with this view and argues that speciesism is akin to racism as we discriminate based on a creature’s similarity to us. I believe this speciesism is reflected in scientific protocol with the hierarchy of animal testing, we are encouraged in our profession to use the ‘lowest life-form possible’. Though I must concur with Gray on this issue and assert that we are evolutionarily biased towards our species and it makes no sense to allow our own species to suffer so that we can limit the suffering of other species, I would suggest that Singer hit the nail on the head, so to speak with his point that animals do not require equal or identical treatment – but equal consideration.

An Ipsis Mori survey (2002) found that 90% of the general public were okay with animal research, suggesting that we are perhaps biased towards our own species. But does animal research really have great validity? The Royal Society have kindly laid out a comprehensive argument for the continuation of animal testing, which is well worth your time. In it they give three examples of how animal research has benefited the world, with regards to: the polio vaccine, kidney dialysis and transplants, and a possible future cure for cystic fibrosis. The success of animal testing must surely be testament to the fact that although animal testing does not always translate to human response, it is capable of changing lives. Now let us consider psychological research, would the birth of behaviourism occurred (Pavlov; Skinner)? Would we know that lack of sleep, and increased stress kills (Jouvet, 1967; Brady, 1958; Warren & Marshall, 1983)? And would we know how important the mother is to a child’s personal development (Harlow, 1958)? Imagine the research that may have been lost, not to mention the research that sprung from these seeds, would we be where we are today without them? Would scientific development be retarded? Whether it was ethical or not we cannot dispute that science would have been worse off, perhaps it could be contested that our societal welfare would also be poorer without these scientific discoveries.

So I shall wrap up! Take this blog as an exploration of what this debate means for the future, and why I think that animal experimentation is essential to scientific progression. Though the rights of animals must be considered and debated so as to ensure the optimum crossover between animal safety and scientific progression; we must not fall into the trap of thinking that animal rights are more important than our own. Singer said himself that if he were to see a human and a lion fighting, he would shoot the lion; rationalising that a man has a malleable future, whilst the lion could only live for the moment. My rationale is rather more simple, I cannot justify to myself that it is any worse to actively harm animals than it is to passively allow people to die because we do not do everything possible to help them.

Are Some Subjects Beyond Research?

Greetings blogging masses! How are you today? Bully.

Today, I will be discussing socially-sensitive research. Is it to the detriment of society that we pursue potentially divisive research? Should the truth be regarded as more important than maintaining the equilibrium of the common man? Confucius suggested that, “the object of the superior man is truth.” This is a view, historically, that man has provided evidence for since the very first human scientist left his cave. As humans  it is our natural inclination to investigate and understand the truths of the world around us, whether we look to the heavens for answer from a celestial being or under a microscope. As scientists, though we are obliged to maintain a level of humbleness in saying that we can never find the truth; we nevertheless still go looking for it. But as psychologists are we further obligated to not delve too far into the forest of truth and eke out every morsel of truth we can find? According to Kuhn, the truth is subject to potential paradigm shifts; yesterday’s truth may be tomorrow’s untruth, can we really conduct divisive research knowing that it may merely be apparently true? As Oscar Wilde said, “the truth is rarely pure and never simple.”

Psychological research generally puts three types of people at risk: the participant, the researcher (and the body of psychology that he represents), and society. Historically, studies (including a study conducted by the APA) have led to the concession that there is a 15 point IQ gap between white and black people. These studies have led to inhumane real-world changes, including mounting arguments for eugenics and an attempt in the ’50s by the US Board of Education to segregate students. As time has gone on scientists have grown to understand that this is not necessarily a hereditary fault, but potentially a poor learning environment, possibly as a result of low socio-economic status. There is little more dangerous in this world than a divisive opinion shared loudly. James Watson, Nobel laureate in biology, put forward his view that low average intelligence was a cause for poverty in Africa. Spokesmen like this place seemingly credible blame on certain groups of people, leading to further ‘scientifically-based’ movements ranging from the ridiculous to the irresponsible. Rushton (1990) suggested that black people had smaller brains and therefore lower intelligence. Trivia fans among you may know that Einstein had a below average sized brain. Levin (1990) believed that no attempt should be made to aid black people in terms of intelligence, deeming it pointless. Studies like this perpetuate a negative stereotype that can only fuel negative actions towards a minority, as seen in numerous eugenics movements. Is it our right to investigate an area that may unearth some dirty cultural laundry? As humanists, do we owe it to the individual that we do not seek any truth that may put them in a disadvantageous position? Kelman (1965) suggests that knowledge is “ethically neutral”, but this is far from a popular view.

Put yourself in the position of a students administrator.

As a charming, attractive, logical person; you would no doubt agree that you are above prejudice and would pick someone for a  position based on salient information. Now, you are faced with a decision. You can offer one PhD place to one of  these prospective students – one is black, one is white and they have similar qualifications. As a learned administrator (in this completely hypothetical scenario), you know that the weight of research has demonstrably indicated that intelligence and academic potential is  completely rooted in genetics. Unfortunate evolutionary circumstances have meant that white people have got the weaker genetics and in general have less potential than black people. SO, who do you employ? Do you provoke the rage of an entire ethnicity by siding with the aforementioned COMPLETELY HYPOTHETICAL objective truth/fact/whatever, or do you take the side of humanism and offer the position based on presumably superficial, (HYPOTHETICALLY) archaic perceptions of equality?

Though you may not be sure on whether the search for truth is > societal equilibrium, you can play it safe by taking the advice of Sieber and Stanley (1988). They suggest 10 ethical issues that a researcher must keep in mind when conducting socially sensitive research:

• Privacy
• Confidentiality
• Sound & Valid Methodology
• Deception
• Informed Consent
• Justice & Equitable Treatment
• Scientific Freedom
• Ownership of Data
• The values of social scientists
• Cost/Benefit Analysis

I understand that I have mainly focused on race but socially-sensitive research is rife throughout psychology’s history. Investigating issues such as gender differences and sexuality, the literature is huge and well worth a read. I believe these types of questions must be debated and ultimately decided upon. Whether your values are based in the attainment of intrinsic truths, potentially leading to a future where we do not deter ourselves from research for risk of offence; or your values may be based in the maintaining of indiscriminate equality, leading to a world where we live in happy ignorance. I hope that my writing has not implied any bias as I am not sure what I think yet. All I believe is that it is right to be cautious in deciding this matter,but recognise that it is a matter that psychology is ignoring at the detriment of both science and humanism. As Brown (1997) put it, “as long as research ethics avoid the matter of whether certain questions ethically cannot be asked, psychology will conduct technically ethical research that violates a more general ethic of avoiding harm to vulnerable populations.”