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Revolutionizing the Study of Mental Disorders

March 27, 2024 • Feature Story • 75th Anniversary

At a Glance:

• The Research Domain Criteria framework (RDoC) was created in 2010 by the National Institute of Mental Health.
• The framework encourages researchers to examine functional processes that are implemented by the brain on a continuum from normal to abnormal.
• This way of researching mental disorders can help overcome inherent limitations in using all-or-nothing diagnostic systems for research.
• Researchers worldwide have taken up the principles of RDoC.
• The framework continues to evolve and update as new information becomes available.

President George H. W. Bush proclaimed  the 1990s “ The Decade of the Brain  ,” urging the National Institutes of Health, the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), and others to raise awareness about the benefits of brain research.

“Over the years, our understanding of the brain—how it works, what goes wrong when it is injured or diseased—has increased dramatically. However, we still have much more to learn,” read the president’s proclamation. “The need for continued study of the brain is compelling: millions of Americans are affected each year by disorders of the brain…Today, these individuals and their families are justifiably hopeful, for a new era of discovery is dawning in brain research.”

Still, despite the explosion of new techniques and tools for studying the brain, such as functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), many mental health researchers were growing frustrated that their field was not progressing as quickly as they had hoped.

For decades, researchers have studied mental disorders using diagnoses based on the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM)—a handbook that lists the symptoms of mental disorders and the criteria for diagnosing a person with a disorder. But, among many researchers, suspicion was growing that the system used to diagnose mental disorders may not be the best way to study them.

“There are many benefits to using the DSM in medical settings—it provides reliability and ease of diagnosis. It also provides a clear-cut diagnosis for patients, which can be necessary to request insurance-based coverage of healthcare or job- or school-based accommodations,” said Bruce Cuthbert, Ph.D., who headed the workgroup that developed NIMH’s Research Domain Criteria Initiative. “However, when used in research, this approach is not always ideal.”

Researchers would often test people with a specific diagnosed DSM disorder against those with a different disorder or with no disorder and see how the groups differed. However, different mental disorders can have similar symptoms, and people can be diagnosed with several different disorders simultaneously. In addition, a diagnosis using the DSM is all or none—patients either qualify for the disorder based on their number of symptoms, or they don’t. This black-and-white approach means there may be people who experience symptoms of a mental disorder but just miss the cutoff for diagnosis.

Dr. Cuthbert, who is now the senior member of the RDoC Unit which orchestrates RDoC work, stated that “Diagnostic systems are based on clinical signs and symptoms, but signs and symptoms can’t really tell us much about what is going on in the brain or the underlying causes of a disorder. With modern neuroscience, we were seeing that information on genetic, pathophysiological, and psychological causes of mental disorders did not line up well with the current diagnostic disorder categories, suggesting that there were central processes that relate to mental disorders that were not being reflected in DMS-based research.”

Road to evolution

Concerned about the limits of using the DSM for research, Dr. Cuthbert, a professor of clinical psychology at the University of Minnesota at the time, approached Dr. Thomas Insel (then NIMH director) during a conference in the autumn of 2008. Dr. Cuthbert recalled saying, “I think it’s really important that we start looking at dimensions of functions related to mental disorders such as fear, working memory, and reward systems because we know that these dimensions cut across various disorders. I think NIMH really needs to think about mental disorders in this new way.”

Dr. Cuthbert didn’t know it then, but he was suggesting something similar to ideas that NIMH was considering. Just months earlier, Dr. Insel had spearheaded the inclusion of a goal in NIMH’s 2008 Strategic Plan for Research to “develop, for research purposes, new ways of classifying mental disorders based on dimensions of observable behavior and neurobiological measures.”

Unaware of the new strategic goal, Dr. Cuthbert was surprised when Dr. Insel's senior advisor, Marlene Guzman, called a few weeks later to ask if he’d be interested in taking a sabbatical to help lead this new effort. Dr. Cuthbert soon transitioned into a full-time NIMH employee, joining the Institute at an exciting time to lead the development of what became known as the Research Domain Criteria (RDoC) Framework. The effort began in 2009 with the creation of an internal working group of interdisciplinary NIMH staff who identified core functional areas that could be used as examples of what research using this new conceptual framework looked like.

The workgroup members conceived a bold change in how investigators studied mental disorders.

“We wanted researchers to transition from looking at mental disorders as all or none diagnoses based on groups of symptoms. Instead, we wanted to encourage researchers to understand how basic core functions of the brain—like fear processing and reward processing—work at a biological and behavioral level and how these core functions contribute to mental disorders,” said Dr. Cuthbert.

This approach would incorporate biological and behavioral measures of mental disorders and examine processes that cut across and apply to all mental disorders. From Dr. Cuthbert’s standpoint, this could help remedy some of the frustrations mental health researchers were experiencing.

Around the same time the workgroup was sharing its plans and organizing the first steps, Sarah Morris, Ph.D., was a researcher focusing on schizophrenia at the University of Maryland School of Medicine in Baltimore. When she first read these papers, she wondered what this new approach would mean for her research, her grants, and her lab.

She also remembered feeling that this new approach reflected what she was seeing in her data.

“When I grouped my participants by those with and without schizophrenia, there was a lot of overlap, and there was a lot of variability across the board, and so it felt like RDoC provided the pathway forward to dissect that and sort it out,” said Dr. Morris.

Later that year, Dr. Morris joined NIMH and the RDoC workgroup, saying, “I was bumping up against a wall every day in my own work and in the data in front of me. And the idea that someone would give the field permission to try something new—that was super exciting.”

The five original RDoC domains of functioning were introduced to the broader scientific community in a series of articles published in 2010  .

To establish the new framework, the RDoC workgroup (including Drs. Cuthbert and Morris) began a series of workshops in 2011 to collect feedback from experts in various areas from the larger scientific community. Five workshops were held over the next two years, each with a different broad domain of functioning based upon prior basic behavioral neuroscience. The five domains were called:

• Negative valence (which included processes related to things like fear, threat, and loss)
• Positive valence (which included processes related to working for rewards and appreciating rewards)
• Cognitive processes
• Social processes
• Arousal and regulation processes (including arousal systems for the body and sleep).

At each workshop, experts defined several specific functions, termed constructs, that fell within the domain of interest. For instance, constructs in the cognitive processes domain included attention, memory, cognitive control, and others.

The result of these feedback sessions was a framework that described mental disorders as the interaction between different functional processes—processes that could occur on a continuum from normal to abnormal. Researchers could measure these functional processes in a variety of complementary ways—for example, by looking at genes associated with these processes, the brain circuits that implement these processes, tests or observations of behaviors that represent these functional processes, and what patients report about their concerns. Also included in the framework was an understanding that functional processes associated with mental disorders are impacted and altered by the environment and a person’s developmental stage.

Preserving momentum

Over time, the Framework continued evolving and adapting to the changing science. In 2018, a sixth functional area called sensorimotor processes was added to the Framework, and in 2019, a workshop was held to better incorporate developmental and environmental processes into the framework.;

Since its creation, the use of RDoC principles in mental health research has spread across the U.S. and the rest of the world. For example, the Psychiatric Ratings using Intermediate Stratified Markers project (PRISM)   , which receives funding from the European Union’s Innovative Medicines Initiative, is seeking to link biological markers of social withdrawal with clinical diagnoses using RDoC-style principles. Similarly, the Roadmap for Mental Health Research in Europe (ROAMER)   project by the European Commission sought to integrate mental health research across Europe using principles similar to those in the RDoC Framework.;

Dr. Morris, who has acceded to the Head of the RDoC Unit, commented: “The fact that investigators and science funders outside the United States are also pursuing similar approaches gives me confidence that we’ve been on the right pathway. I just think that this has got to be how nature works and that we are in better alignment with the basic fundamental processes that are of interest to understanding mental disorders.”

The RDoC framework will continue to adapt and change with emerging science to remain relevant as a resource for researchers now and in the future. For instance, NIMH continues to work toward the development and optimization of tools to assess RDoC constructs and supports data-driven efforts to measure function within and across domains.

“For the millions of people impacted by mental disorders, research means hope. The RDoC framework helps us study mental disorders in a different way and has already driven considerable change in the field over the past decade,” said Joshua A. Gordon, M.D., Ph.D., director of NIMH. “We hope this and other innovative approaches will continue to accelerate research progress, paving the way for prevention, recovery, and cure.”

Publications

Cuthbert, B. N., & Insel, T. R. (2013). Toward the future of psychiatric diagnosis: The seven pillars of RDoC. BMC Medicine , 11 , 126. https://doi.org/10.1186/1741-7015-11-126  

Cuthbert B. N. (2014). Translating intermediate phenotypes to psychopathology: The NIMH Research Domain Criteria. Psychophysiology , 51 (12), 1205–1206. https://doi.org/10.1111/psyp.12342  

Cuthbert, B., & Insel, T. (2010). The data of diagnosis: New approaches to psychiatric classification. Psychiatry , 73 (4), 311–314. https://doi.org/10.1521/psyc.2010.73.4.311  

Cuthbert, B. N., & Kozak, M. J. (2013). Constructing constructs for psychopathology: The NIMH research domain criteria. Journal of Abnormal Psychology , 122 (3), 928–937. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0034028  

Garvey, M. A., & Cuthbert, B. N. (2017). Developing a motor systems domain for the NIMH RDoC program.  Schizophrenia Bulletin , 43 (5), 935–936. https://doi.org/10.1093/schbul/sbx095  

Insel, T. (2013). Transforming diagnosis . http://www.nimh.nih.gov/about/director/2013/transforming-diagnosis.shtml

Kozak, M. J., & Cuthbert, B. N. (2016). The NIMH Research Domain Criteria initiative: Background, issues, and pragmatics. Psychophysiology , 53 (3), 286–297. https://doi.org/10.1111/psyp.12518  

Morris, S. E., & Cuthbert, B. N. (2012). Research Domain Criteria: Cognitive systems, neural circuits, and dimensions of behavior. Dialogues in Clinical Neuroscience , 14 (1), 29–37. https://doi.org/10.31887/DCNS.2012.14.1/smorris  

Sanislow, C. A., Pine, D. S., Quinn, K. J., Kozak, M. J., Garvey, M. A., Heinssen, R. K., Wang, P. S., & Cuthbert, B. N. (2010). Developing constructs for psychopathology research: Research domain criteria. Journal of Abnormal Psychology , 119 (4), 631–639. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0020909  

• Presidential Proclamation 6158 (The Decade of the Brain) 
• Research Domain Criteria Initiative website
• Psychiatric Ratings using Intermediate Stratified Markers (PRISM)  
• Roadmap for Mental Health Research in Europe (ROAMER)  

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Review article, the use of research methods in psychological research: a systematised review.

• 1 Community Psychosocial Research (COMPRES), School of Psychosocial Health, North-West University, Potchefstroom, South Africa
• 2 WorkWell Research Institute, North-West University, Potchefstroom, South Africa

Research methods play an imperative role in research quality as well as educating young researchers, however, the application thereof is unclear which can be detrimental to the field of psychology. Therefore, this systematised review aimed to determine what research methods are being used, how these methods are being used and for what topics in the field. Our review of 999 articles from five journals over a period of 5 years indicated that psychology research is conducted in 10 topics via predominantly quantitative research methods. Of these 10 topics, social psychology was the most popular. The remainder of the conducted methodology is described. It was also found that articles lacked rigour and transparency in the used methodology which has implications for replicability. In conclusion this article, provides an overview of all reported methodologies used in a sample of psychology journals. It highlights the popularity and application of methods and designs throughout the article sample as well as an unexpected lack of rigour with regard to most aspects of methodology. Possible sample bias should be considered when interpreting the results of this study. It is recommended that future research should utilise the results of this study to determine the possible impact on the field of psychology as a science and to further investigation into the use of research methods. Results should prompt the following future research into: a lack or rigour and its implication on replication, the use of certain methods above others, publication bias and choice of sampling method.

Introduction

Psychology is an ever-growing and popular field ( Gough and Lyons, 2016 ; Clay, 2017 ). Due to this growth and the need for science-based research to base health decisions on ( Perestelo-Pérez, 2013 ), the use of research methods in the broad field of psychology is an essential point of investigation ( Stangor, 2011 ; Aanstoos, 2014 ). Research methods are therefore viewed as important tools used by researchers to collect data ( Nieuwenhuis, 2016 ) and include the following: quantitative, qualitative, mixed method and multi method ( Maree, 2016 ). Additionally, researchers also employ various types of literature reviews to address research questions ( Grant and Booth, 2009 ). According to literature, what research method is used and why a certain research method is used is complex as it depends on various factors that may include paradigm ( O'Neil and Koekemoer, 2016 ), research question ( Grix, 2002 ), or the skill and exposure of the researcher ( Nind et al., 2015 ). How these research methods are employed is also difficult to discern as research methods are often depicted as having fixed boundaries that are continuously crossed in research ( Johnson et al., 2001 ; Sandelowski, 2011 ). Examples of this crossing include adding quantitative aspects to qualitative studies ( Sandelowski et al., 2009 ), or stating that a study used a mixed-method design without the study having any characteristics of this design ( Truscott et al., 2010 ).

The inappropriate use of research methods affects how students and researchers improve and utilise their research skills ( Scott Jones and Goldring, 2015 ), how theories are developed ( Ngulube, 2013 ), and the credibility of research results ( Levitt et al., 2017 ). This, in turn, can be detrimental to the field ( Nind et al., 2015 ), journal publication ( Ketchen et al., 2008 ; Ezeh et al., 2010 ), and attempts to address public social issues through psychological research ( Dweck, 2017 ). This is especially important given the now well-known replication crisis the field is facing ( Earp and Trafimow, 2015 ; Hengartner, 2018 ).

Due to this lack of clarity on method use and the potential impact of inept use of research methods, the aim of this study was to explore the use of research methods in the field of psychology through a review of journal publications. Chaichanasakul et al. (2011) identify reviewing articles as the opportunity to examine the development, growth and progress of a research area and overall quality of a journal. Studies such as Lee et al. (1999) as well as Bluhm et al. (2011) review of qualitative methods has attempted to synthesis the use of research methods and indicated the growth of qualitative research in American and European journals. Research has also focused on the use of research methods in specific sub-disciplines of psychology, for example, in the field of Industrial and Organisational psychology Coetzee and Van Zyl (2014) found that South African publications tend to consist of cross-sectional quantitative research methods with underrepresented longitudinal studies. Qualitative studies were found to make up 21% of the articles published from 1995 to 2015 in a similar study by O'Neil and Koekemoer (2016) . Other methods in health psychology, such as Mixed methods research have also been reportedly growing in popularity ( O'Cathain, 2009 ).

A broad overview of the use of research methods in the field of psychology as a whole is however, not available in the literature. Therefore, our research focused on answering what research methods are being used, how these methods are being used and for what topics in practice (i.e., journal publications) in order to provide a general perspective of method used in psychology publication. We synthesised the collected data into the following format: research topic [areas of scientific discourse in a field or the current needs of a population ( Bittermann and Fischer, 2018 )], method [data-gathering tools ( Nieuwenhuis, 2016 )], sampling [elements chosen from a population to partake in research ( Ritchie et al., 2009 )], data collection [techniques and research strategy ( Maree, 2016 )], and data analysis [discovering information by examining bodies of data ( Ktepi, 2016 )]. A systematised review of recent articles (2013 to 2017) collected from five different journals in the field of psychological research was conducted.

Grant and Booth (2009) describe systematised reviews as the review of choice for post-graduate studies, which is employed using some elements of a systematic review and seldom more than one or two databases to catalogue studies after a comprehensive literature search. The aspects used in this systematised review that are similar to that of a systematic review were a full search within the chosen database and data produced in tabular form ( Grant and Booth, 2009 ).

Sample sizes and timelines vary in systematised reviews (see Lowe and Moore, 2014 ; Pericall and Taylor, 2014 ; Barr-Walker, 2017 ). With no clear parameters identified in the literature (see Grant and Booth, 2009 ), the sample size of this study was determined by the purpose of the sample ( Strydom, 2011 ), and time and cost constraints ( Maree and Pietersen, 2016 ). Thus, a non-probability purposive sample ( Ritchie et al., 2009 ) of the top five psychology journals from 2013 to 2017 was included in this research study. Per Lee (2015) American Psychological Association (APA) recommends the use of the most up-to-date sources for data collection with consideration of the context of the research study. As this research study focused on the most recent trends in research methods used in the broad field of psychology, the identified time frame was deemed appropriate.

Psychology journals were only included if they formed part of the top five English journals in the miscellaneous psychology domain of the Scimago Journal and Country Rank ( Scimago Journal & Country Rank, 2017 ). The Scimago Journal and Country Rank provides a yearly updated list of publicly accessible journal and country-specific indicators derived from the Scopus ® database ( Scopus, 2017b ) by means of the Scimago Journal Rank (SJR) indicator developed by Scimago from the algorithm Google PageRank™ ( Scimago Journal & Country Rank, 2017 ). Scopus is the largest global database of abstracts and citations from peer-reviewed journals ( Scopus, 2017a ). Reasons for the development of the Scimago Journal and Country Rank list was to allow researchers to assess scientific domains, compare country rankings, and compare and analyse journals ( Scimago Journal & Country Rank, 2017 ), which supported the aim of this research study. Additionally, the goals of the journals had to focus on topics in psychology in general with no preference to specific research methods and have full-text access to articles.

The following list of top five journals in 2018 fell within the abovementioned inclusion criteria (1) Australian Journal of Psychology, (2) British Journal of Psychology, (3) Europe's Journal of Psychology, (4) International Journal of Psychology and lastly the (5) Journal of Psychology Applied and Interdisciplinary.

Journals were excluded from this systematised review if no full-text versions of their articles were available, if journals explicitly stated a publication preference for certain research methods, or if the journal only published articles in a specific discipline of psychological research (for example, industrial psychology, clinical psychology etc.).

The researchers followed a procedure (see Figure 1 ) adapted from that of Ferreira et al. (2016) for systematised reviews. Data collection and categorisation commenced on 4 December 2017 and continued until 30 June 2019. All the data was systematically collected and coded manually ( Grant and Booth, 2009 ) with an independent person acting as co-coder. Codes of interest included the research topic, method used, the design used, sampling method, and methodology (the method used for data collection and data analysis). These codes were derived from the wording in each article. Themes were created based on the derived codes and checked by the co-coder. Lastly, these themes were catalogued into a table as per the systematised review design.

Figure 1 . Systematised review procedure.

According to Johnston et al. (2019) , “literature screening, selection, and data extraction/analyses” (p. 7) are specifically tailored to the aim of a review. Therefore, the steps followed in a systematic review must be reported in a comprehensive and transparent manner. The chosen systematised design adhered to the rigour expected from systematic reviews with regard to full search and data produced in tabular form ( Grant and Booth, 2009 ). The rigorous application of the systematic review is, therefore discussed in relation to these two elements.

Firstly, to ensure a comprehensive search, this research study promoted review transparency by following a clear protocol outlined according to each review stage before collecting data ( Johnston et al., 2019 ). This protocol was similar to that of Ferreira et al. (2016) and approved by three research committees/stakeholders and the researchers ( Johnston et al., 2019 ). The eligibility criteria for article inclusion was based on the research question and clearly stated, and the process of inclusion was recorded on an electronic spreadsheet to create an evidence trail ( Bandara et al., 2015 ; Johnston et al., 2019 ). Microsoft Excel spreadsheets are a popular tool for review studies and can increase the rigour of the review process ( Bandara et al., 2015 ). Screening for appropriate articles for inclusion forms an integral part of a systematic review process ( Johnston et al., 2019 ). This step was applied to two aspects of this research study: the choice of eligible journals and articles to be included. Suitable journals were selected by the first author and reviewed by the second and third authors. Initially, all articles from the chosen journals were included. Then, by process of elimination, those irrelevant to the research aim, i.e., interview articles or discussions etc., were excluded.

To ensure rigourous data extraction, data was first extracted by one reviewer, and an independent person verified the results for completeness and accuracy ( Johnston et al., 2019 ). The research question served as a guide for efficient, organised data extraction ( Johnston et al., 2019 ). Data was categorised according to the codes of interest, along with article identifiers for audit trails such as authors, title and aims of articles. The categorised data was based on the aim of the review ( Johnston et al., 2019 ) and synthesised in tabular form under methods used, how these methods were used, and for what topics in the field of psychology.

The initial search produced a total of 1,145 articles from the 5 journals identified. Inclusion and exclusion criteria resulted in a final sample of 999 articles ( Figure 2 ). Articles were co-coded into 84 codes, from which 10 themes were derived ( Table 1 ).

Figure 2 . Journal article frequency.

Table 1 . Codes used to form themes (research topics).

These 10 themes represent the topic section of our research question ( Figure 3 ). All these topics except, for the final one, psychological practice , were found to concur with the research areas in psychology as identified by Weiten (2010) . These research areas were chosen to represent the derived codes as they provided broad definitions that allowed for clear, concise categorisation of the vast amount of data. Article codes were categorised under particular themes/topics if they adhered to the research area definitions created by Weiten (2010) . It is important to note that these areas of research do not refer to specific disciplines in psychology, such as industrial psychology; but to broader fields that may encompass sub-interests of these disciplines.

Figure 3 . Topic frequency (international sample).

In the case of developmental psychology , researchers conduct research into human development from childhood to old age. Social psychology includes research on behaviour governed by social drivers. Researchers in the field of educational psychology study how people learn and the best way to teach them. Health psychology aims to determine the effect of psychological factors on physiological health. Physiological psychology , on the other hand, looks at the influence of physiological aspects on behaviour. Experimental psychology is not the only theme that uses experimental research and focuses on the traditional core topics of psychology (for example, sensation). Cognitive psychology studies the higher mental processes. Psychometrics is concerned with measuring capacity or behaviour. Personality research aims to assess and describe consistency in human behaviour ( Weiten, 2010 ). The final theme of psychological practice refers to the experiences, techniques, and interventions employed by practitioners, researchers, and academia in the field of psychology.

Articles under these themes were further subdivided into methodologies: method, sampling, design, data collection, and data analysis. The categorisation was based on information stated in the articles and not inferred by the researchers. Data were compiled into two sets of results presented in this article. The first set addresses the aim of this study from the perspective of the topics identified. The second set of results represents a broad overview of the results from the perspective of the methodology employed. The second set of results are discussed in this article, while the first set is presented in table format. The discussion thus provides a broad overview of methods use in psychology (across all themes), while the table format provides readers with in-depth insight into methods used in the individual themes identified. We believe that presenting the data from both perspectives allow readers a broad understanding of the results. Due a large amount of information that made up our results, we followed Cichocka and Jost (2014) in simplifying our results. Please note that the numbers indicated in the table in terms of methodology differ from the total number of articles. Some articles employed more than one method/sampling technique/design/data collection method/data analysis in their studies.

What follows is the results for what methods are used, how these methods are used, and which topics in psychology they are applied to . Percentages are reported to the second decimal in order to highlight small differences in the occurrence of methodology.

Firstly, with regard to the research methods used, our results show that researchers are more likely to use quantitative research methods (90.22%) compared to all other research methods. Qualitative research was the second most common research method but only made up about 4.79% of the general method usage. Reviews occurred almost as much as qualitative studies (3.91%), as the third most popular method. Mixed-methods research studies (0.98%) occurred across most themes, whereas multi-method research was indicated in only one study and amounted to 0.10% of the methods identified. The specific use of each method in the topics identified is shown in Table 2 and Figure 4 .

Table 2 . Research methods in psychology.

Figure 4 . Research method frequency in topics.

Secondly, in the case of how these research methods are employed , our study indicated the following.

Sampling −78.34% of the studies in the collected articles did not specify a sampling method. From the remainder of the studies, 13 types of sampling methods were identified. These sampling methods included broad categorisation of a sample as, for example, a probability or non-probability sample. General samples of convenience were the methods most likely to be applied (10.34%), followed by random sampling (3.51%), snowball sampling (2.73%), and purposive (1.37%) and cluster sampling (1.27%). The remainder of the sampling methods occurred to a more limited extent (0–1.0%). See Table 3 and Figure 5 for sampling methods employed in each topic.

Table 3 . Sampling use in the field of psychology.

Figure 5 . Sampling method frequency in topics.

Designs were categorised based on the articles' statement thereof. Therefore, it is important to note that, in the case of quantitative studies, non-experimental designs (25.55%) were often indicated due to a lack of experiments and any other indication of design, which, according to Laher (2016) , is a reasonable categorisation. Non-experimental designs should thus be compared with experimental designs only in the description of data, as it could include the use of correlational/cross-sectional designs, which were not overtly stated by the authors. For the remainder of the research methods, “not stated” (7.12%) was assigned to articles without design types indicated.

From the 36 identified designs the most popular designs were cross-sectional (23.17%) and experimental (25.64%), which concurred with the high number of quantitative studies. Longitudinal studies (3.80%), the third most popular design, was used in both quantitative and qualitative studies. Qualitative designs consisted of ethnography (0.38%), interpretative phenomenological designs/phenomenology (0.28%), as well as narrative designs (0.28%). Studies that employed the review method were mostly categorised as “not stated,” with the most often stated review designs being systematic reviews (0.57%). The few mixed method studies employed exploratory, explanatory (0.09%), and concurrent designs (0.19%), with some studies referring to separate designs for the qualitative and quantitative methods. The one study that identified itself as a multi-method study used a longitudinal design. Please see how these designs were employed in each specific topic in Table 4 , Figure 6 .

Table 4 . Design use in the field of psychology.

Figure 6 . Design frequency in topics.

Data collection and analysis —data collection included 30 methods, with the data collection method most often employed being questionnaires (57.84%). The experimental task (16.56%) was the second most preferred collection method, which included established or unique tasks designed by the researchers. Cognitive ability tests (6.84%) were also regularly used along with various forms of interviewing (7.66%). Table 5 and Figure 7 represent data collection use in the various topics. Data analysis consisted of 3,857 occurrences of data analysis categorised into ±188 various data analysis techniques shown in Table 6 and Figures 1 – 7 . Descriptive statistics were the most commonly used (23.49%) along with correlational analysis (17.19%). When using a qualitative method, researchers generally employed thematic analysis (0.52%) or different forms of analysis that led to coding and the creation of themes. Review studies presented few data analysis methods, with most studies categorising their results. Mixed method and multi-method studies followed the analysis methods identified for the qualitative and quantitative studies included.

Table 5 . Data collection in the field of psychology.

Figure 7 . Data collection frequency in topics.

Table 6 . Data analysis in the field of psychology.

Results of the topics researched in psychology can be seen in the tables, as previously stated in this article. It is noteworthy that, of the 10 topics, social psychology accounted for 43.54% of the studies, with cognitive psychology the second most popular research topic at 16.92%. The remainder of the topics only occurred in 4.0–7.0% of the articles considered. A list of the included 999 articles is available under the section “View Articles” on the following website: https://methodgarden.xtrapolate.io/ . This website was created by Scholtz et al. (2019) to visually present a research framework based on this Article's results.

This systematised review categorised full-length articles from five international journals across the span of 5 years to provide insight into the use of research methods in the field of psychology. Results indicated what methods are used how these methods are being used and for what topics (why) in the included sample of articles. The results should be seen as providing insight into method use and by no means a comprehensive representation of the aforementioned aim due to the limited sample. To our knowledge, this is the first research study to address this topic in this manner. Our discussion attempts to promote a productive way forward in terms of the key results for method use in psychology, especially in the field of academia ( Holloway, 2008 ).

With regard to the methods used, our data stayed true to literature, finding only common research methods ( Grant and Booth, 2009 ; Maree, 2016 ) that varied in the degree to which they were employed. Quantitative research was found to be the most popular method, as indicated by literature ( Breen and Darlaston-Jones, 2010 ; Counsell and Harlow, 2017 ) and previous studies in specific areas of psychology (see Coetzee and Van Zyl, 2014 ). Its long history as the first research method ( Leech et al., 2007 ) in the field of psychology as well as researchers' current application of mathematical approaches in their studies ( Toomela, 2010 ) might contribute to its popularity today. Whatever the case may be, our results show that, despite the growth in qualitative research ( Demuth, 2015 ; Smith and McGannon, 2018 ), quantitative research remains the first choice for article publication in these journals. Despite the included journals indicating openness to articles that apply any research methods. This finding may be due to qualitative research still being seen as a new method ( Burman and Whelan, 2011 ) or reviewers' standards being higher for qualitative studies ( Bluhm et al., 2011 ). Future research is encouraged into the possible biasness in publication of research methods, additionally further investigation with a different sample into the proclaimed growth of qualitative research may also provide different results.

Review studies were found to surpass that of multi-method and mixed method studies. To this effect Grant and Booth (2009) , state that the increased awareness, journal contribution calls as well as its efficiency in procuring research funds all promote the popularity of reviews. The low frequency of mixed method studies contradicts the view in literature that it's the third most utilised research method ( Tashakkori and Teddlie's, 2003 ). Its' low occurrence in this sample could be due to opposing views on mixing methods ( Gunasekare, 2015 ) or that authors prefer publishing in mixed method journals, when using this method, or its relative novelty ( Ivankova et al., 2016 ). Despite its low occurrence, the application of the mixed methods design in articles was methodologically clear in all cases which were not the case for the remainder of research methods.

Additionally, a substantial number of studies used a combination of methodologies that are not mixed or multi-method studies. Perceived fixed boundaries are according to literature often set aside, as confirmed by this result, in order to investigate the aim of a study, which could create a new and helpful way of understanding the world ( Gunasekare, 2015 ). According to Toomela (2010) , this is not unheard of and could be considered a form of “structural systemic science,” as in the case of qualitative methodology (observation) applied in quantitative studies (experimental design) for example. Based on this result, further research into this phenomenon as well as its implications for research methods such as multi and mixed methods is recommended.

Discerning how these research methods were applied, presented some difficulty. In the case of sampling, most studies—regardless of method—did mention some form of inclusion and exclusion criteria, but no definite sampling method. This result, along with the fact that samples often consisted of students from the researchers' own academic institutions, can contribute to literature and debates among academics ( Peterson and Merunka, 2014 ; Laher, 2016 ). Samples of convenience and students as participants especially raise questions about the generalisability and applicability of results ( Peterson and Merunka, 2014 ). This is because attention to sampling is important as inappropriate sampling can debilitate the legitimacy of interpretations ( Onwuegbuzie and Collins, 2017 ). Future investigation into the possible implications of this reported popular use of convenience samples for the field of psychology as well as the reason for this use could provide interesting insight, and is encouraged by this study.

Additionally, and this is indicated in Table 6 , articles seldom report the research designs used, which highlights the pressing aspect of the lack of rigour in the included sample. Rigour with regards to the applied empirical method is imperative in promoting psychology as a science ( American Psychological Association, 2020 ). Omitting parts of the research process in publication when it could have been used to inform others' research skills should be questioned, and the influence on the process of replicating results should be considered. Publications are often rejected due to a lack of rigour in the applied method and designs ( Fonseca, 2013 ; Laher, 2016 ), calling for increased clarity and knowledge of method application. Replication is a critical part of any field of scientific research and requires the “complete articulation” of the study methods used ( Drotar, 2010 , p. 804). The lack of thorough description could be explained by the requirements of certain journals to only report on certain aspects of a research process, especially with regard to the applied design (Laher, 20). However, naming aspects such as sampling and designs, is a requirement according to the APA's Journal Article Reporting Standards (JARS-Quant) ( Appelbaum et al., 2018 ). With very little information on how a study was conducted, authors lose a valuable opportunity to enhance research validity, enrich the knowledge of others, and contribute to the growth of psychology and methodology as a whole. In the case of this research study, it also restricted our results to only reported samples and designs, which indicated a preference for certain designs, such as cross-sectional designs for quantitative studies.

Data collection and analysis were for the most part clearly stated. A key result was the versatile use of questionnaires. Researchers would apply a questionnaire in various ways, for example in questionnaire interviews, online surveys, and written questionnaires across most research methods. This may highlight a trend for future research.

With regard to the topics these methods were employed for, our research study found a new field named “psychological practice.” This result may show the growing consciousness of researchers as part of the research process ( Denzin and Lincoln, 2003 ), psychological practice, and knowledge generation. The most popular of these topics was social psychology, which is generously covered in journals and by learning societies, as testaments of the institutional support and richness social psychology has in the field of psychology ( Chryssochoou, 2015 ). The APA's perspective on 2018 trends in psychology also identifies an increased amount of psychology focus on how social determinants are influencing people's health ( Deangelis, 2017 ).

This study was not without limitations and the following should be taken into account. Firstly, this study used a sample of five specific journals to address the aim of the research study, despite general journal aims (as stated on journal websites), this inclusion signified a bias towards the research methods published in these specific journals only and limited generalisability. A broader sample of journals over a different period of time, or a single journal over a longer period of time might provide different results. A second limitation is the use of Excel spreadsheets and an electronic system to log articles, which was a manual process and therefore left room for error ( Bandara et al., 2015 ). To address this potential issue, co-coding was performed to reduce error. Lastly, this article categorised data based on the information presented in the article sample; there was no interpretation of what methodology could have been applied or whether the methods stated adhered to the criteria for the methods used. Thus, a large number of articles that did not clearly indicate a research method or design could influence the results of this review. However, this in itself was also a noteworthy result. Future research could review research methods of a broader sample of journals with an interpretive review tool that increases rigour. Additionally, the authors also encourage the future use of systematised review designs as a way to promote a concise procedure in applying this design.

Our research study presented the use of research methods for published articles in the field of psychology as well as recommendations for future research based on these results. Insight into the complex questions identified in literature, regarding what methods are used how these methods are being used and for what topics (why) was gained. This sample preferred quantitative methods, used convenience sampling and presented a lack of rigorous accounts for the remaining methodologies. All methodologies that were clearly indicated in the sample were tabulated to allow researchers insight into the general use of methods and not only the most frequently used methods. The lack of rigorous account of research methods in articles was represented in-depth for each step in the research process and can be of vital importance to address the current replication crisis within the field of psychology. Recommendations for future research aimed to motivate research into the practical implications of the results for psychology, for example, publication bias and the use of convenience samples.

Ethics Statement

This study was cleared by the North-West University Health Research Ethics Committee: NWU-00115-17-S1.

Author Contributions

All authors listed have made a substantial, direct and intellectual contribution to the work, and approved it for publication.

Conflict of Interest

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

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Keywords: research methods, research approach, research trends, psychological research, systematised review, research designs, research topic

Citation: Scholtz SE, de Klerk W and de Beer LT (2020) The Use of Research Methods in Psychological Research: A Systematised Review. Front. Res. Metr. Anal. 5:1. doi: 10.3389/frma.2020.00001

Received: 30 December 2019; Accepted: 28 February 2020; Published: 20 March 2020.

Reviewed by:

Copyright © 2020 Scholtz, de Klerk and de Beer. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY) . The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

*Correspondence: Salomé Elizabeth Scholtz, 22308563@nwu.ac.za

How the Classics Changed Research Ethics

Some of history’s most controversial psychology studies helped drive extensive protections for human research participants. some say those reforms went too far..

• Behavioral Research
• Institutional Review Board (IRB)

Photo above: In 1971, APS Fellow Philip Zimbardo halted his classic prison simulation at Stanford after volunteer “guards” became abusive to the “prisoners,” famously leading one prisoner into a fit of sobbing. Photo credit:   PrisonExp.org

Nearly 60 years have passed since Stanley Milgram’s infamous “shock box” study sparked an international focus on ethics in psychological research. Countless historians and psychology instructors assert that Milgram’s experiments—along with studies like the Robbers Cave and Stanford prison experiments—could never occur today; ethics gatekeepers would swiftly bar such studies from proceeding, recognizing the potential harms to the participants. 

But the reforms that followed some of the 20th century’s most alarming biomedical and behavioral studies have overreached, many social and behavioral scientists complain. Studies that pose no peril to participants confront the same standards as experimental drug treatments or surgeries, they contend. The institutional review boards (IRBs) charged with protecting research participants fail to understand minimal risk, they say. Researchers complain they waste time addressing IRB concerns that have nothing to do with participant safety. 

Several factors contribute to this conflict, ethicists say. Researchers and IRBs operate in a climate of misunderstanding, confusing regulations, and a systemic lack of ethics training, said APS Fellow Celia Fisher, a Fordham University professor and research ethicist, in an interview with the Observer . 

“In my view, IRBs are trying to do their best and investigators are trying to do their best,” Fisher said. “It’s more that we really have to enhance communication and training on both sides.” 

‘Sins’ from the past  

Modern human-subjects protections date back to the 1947 Nuremberg Code, the response to Nazi medical experiments on concentration-camp internees. Those ethical principles, which no nation or organization has officially accepted as law or official ethics guidelines, emphasized that a study’s benefits should outweigh the risks and that human subjects should be fully informed about the research and participate voluntarily.  

See the 2014 Observer cover story by APS Fellow Carol A. Tavris, “ Teaching Contentious Classics ,” for more about these controversial studies and how to discuss them with students.

But the discovery of U.S.-government-sponsored research abuses, including the Tuskegee syphilis experiment on African American men and radiation experiments on humans, accelerated regulatory initiatives. The abuses investigators uncovered in the 1970s, 80s, and 90s—decades after the experiments had occurred—heightened policymakers’ concerns “about what else might still be going on,” George Mason University historian Zachary M. Schrag explained in an interview. These concerns generated restrictions not only on biomedical research but on social and behavioral studies that pose a minute risk of harm.  

“The sins of researchers from the 1940s led to new regulations in the 1990s, even though it was not at all clear that those kinds of activities were still going on in any way,” said Schrag, who chronicled the rise of IRBs in his book  Ethical Imperialism: Institutional Review Boards and the Social Sciences, 1965–2009.  

Accompanying the medical research scandals were controversial psychological studies that provided fodder for textbooks, historical tomes, and movies.  

• In the early 1950s, social psychologist Muzafer Sherif and his colleagues used a Boy Scout camp called Robbers Cave to study intergroup hostility. They randomly assigned preadolescent boys to one of two groups and concocted a series of competitive activities that quickly sparked conflict. They later set up a situation that compelled the boys to overcome their differences and work together. The study provided insights into prejudice and conflict resolution but generated criticism because the children weren’t told they were part of an experiment. 
• In 1961, Milgram began his studies on obedience to authority by directing participants to administer increasing levels of electric shock to another person (a confederate). To Milgram’s surprise, more than 65% of the participants delivered the full voltage of shock (which unbeknownst to them was fake), even though many were distressed about doing so. Milgram was widely criticized for the manipulation and deception he employed to carry out his experiments. 
• In 1971, APS Fellow Philip Zimbardo halted his classic prison simulation at Stanford after volunteer “guards” became abusive to the “prisoners,” famously leading one prisoner into a fit of sobbing. 

Western policymakers created a variety of safeguards in the wake of these psychological studies and other medical research. Among them was the Declaration of Helsinki, an ethical guide for human-subjects research developed by the Europe-based World Medical Association. The U.S. Congress passed the National Research Act of 1974, which created a commission to oversee participant protections in biomedical and behavioral research. And in the 90s, federal agencies adopted the Federal Policy for the Protection of Human Subjects (better known as the Common Rule), a code of ethics applied to any government-funded research. IRBs review studies through the lens of the Common Rule. After that, social science research, including studies in social psychology, anthropology, sociology, and political science, began facing widespread institutional review (Schrag, 2010).  

Sailing Through Review

Psychological scientists and other researchers who have served on institutional review boards provide these tips to help researchers get their studies reviewed swiftly.  

• Determine whether your study qualifies for minimal-risk exemption from review. Online tools are even in development to help researchers self-determine exempt status (Ben-Shahar, 2019; Schneider & McClutcheon, 2018). 
• If you’re not clear about your exemption, research the regulations to understand how they apply to your planned study. Show you’ve done your homework and have developed a protocol that is safe for your participants.  
• Consult with stakeholders. Look for advocacy groups and representatives from the population you plan to study. Ask them what they regard as fair compensation for participation. Get their feedback about your questionnaires and consent forms to make sure they’re understandable. These steps help you better show your IRB that the population you’re studying will find the protections adequate (Fisher, 2022). 
• Speak to IRB members or staff before submitting the protocol. Ask them their specific concerns about your study, and get guidance on writing up the protocol to address those concerns. Also ask them about expected turnaround times so you can plan your submission in time to meet any deadlines associated with your study (e.g., grant application deadlines).  

Ben-Shahar, O. (2019, December 2). Reforming the IRB in experimental fashion. The Regulatory Review . University of Pennsylvania. https://www.theregreview.org/2019/12/02/ben-shahar-reforming-irb-experimental-fashion/  

Fisher, C. B. (2022). Decoding the ethics code: A practical guide for psychologists (5 th ed.). Sage Publications. 

Schneider, S. L. & McCutcheon, J. A. (2018).  Proof of concept: Use of a wizard for self-determination of IRB exempt status . Federal Demonstration Partnership.   http://thefdp.org/default/assets/File/Documents/wizard_pilot_final_rpt.pdf  

Social scientists have long contended that the Common Rule was largely designed to protect participants in biomedical experiments—where scientists face the risk of inducing physical harm on subjects—but fits poorly with the other disciplines that fall within its reach.

“It’s not like the IRBs are trying to hinder research. It’s just that regulations continue to be written in the medical model without any specificity for social science research,” she explained. 

The Common Rule was updated in 2018 to ease the level of institutional review for low-risk research techniques (e.g., surveys, educational tests, interviews) that are frequent tools in social and behavioral studies. A special committee of the National Research Council (NRC), chaired by APS Past President Susan Fiske, recommended many of those modifications. Fisher was involved in the NRC committee, along with APS Fellows Richard Nisbett (University of Michigan) and Felice J. Levine (American Educational Research Association), and clinical psychologist Melissa Abraham of Harvard University. But the Common Rule reforms have yet to fully expedite much of the research, partly because the review boards remain confused about exempt categories, Fisher said.  

Interference or support?  

That regulatory confusion has generated sour sentiments toward IRBs. For decades, many social and behavioral scientists have complained that IRBs effectively impede scientific progress through arbitrary questions and objections. 

In a Perspectives on Psychological Science  paper they co-authored, APS Fellows Stephen Ceci of Cornell University and Maggie Bruck of Johns Hopkins University discussed an IRB rejection of their plans for a study with 6- to 10-year-old participants. Ceci and Bruck planned to show the children videos depicting a fictional police officer engaging in suggestive questioning of a child.  

“The IRB refused to approve the proposal because it was deemed unethical to show children public servants in a negative light,” they wrote, adding that the IRB held firm on its rejection despite government funders already having approved the study protocol (Ceci & Bruck, 2009).   

Other scientists have complained the IRBs exceed their Common Rule authority by requiring review of studies that are not government funded. In 2011, psychological scientist Jin Li sued Brown University in federal court for barring her from using data she collected in a privately funded study on educational testing. Brown’s IRB objected to the fact that she paid her participants different amounts of compensation based on need. (A year later, the university settled the case with Li.) 

In addition, IRBs often hover over minor aspects of a study that have no genuine relation to participant welfare, Ceci said in an email interview.  

“You can have IRB approval and later decide to make a nominal change to the protocol (a frequent one is to add a new assistant to the project or to increase the sample size),” he wrote. “It can take over a month to get approval. In the meantime, nothing can move forward and the students sit around waiting.” 

Not all researchers view institutional review as a roadblock. Psychological scientist Nathaniel Herr, who runs American University’s Interpersonal Emotion Lab and has served on the school’s IRB, says the board effectively collaborated with researchers to ensure the study designs were safe and that participant privacy was appropriately protected 

“If the IRB that I operated on saw an issue, they shared suggestions we could make to overcome that issue,” Herr said. “It was about making the research go forward. I never saw a project get shut down. It might have required a significant change, but it was often about confidentiality and it’s something that helps everybody feel better about the fact we weren’t abusing our privilege as researchers. I really believe it [the review process] makes the projects better.” 

Some universities—including Fordham University, Yale University, and The University of Chicago—even have social and behavioral research IRBs whose members include experts optimally equipped to judge the safety of a psychological study, Fisher noted. 

Training gaps  

Institutional review is beset by a lack of ethics training in research programs, Fisher believes. While students in professional psychology programs take accreditation-required ethics courses in their doctoral programs, psychologists in other fields have no such requirement. In these programs, ethics training is often limited to an online program that provides, at best, a perfunctory overview of federal regulations. 

“It gives you the fundamental information, but it has nothing to do with our real-world deliberations about protecting participants,” she said. 

Additionally, harm to a participant is difficult to predict. As sociologist Martin Tolich of University of Otago in New Zealand wrote, the Stanford prison study had been IRB-approved. 

“Prediction of harm with any certainty is not necessarily possible, and should not be the aim of ethics review,” he argued. “A more measured goal is the minimization of risk, not its eradication” (Tolich, 2014). 

Fisher notes that scientists aren’t trained to recognize and respond to adverse events when they occur during a study. 

“To be trained in research ethics requires not just knowing you have to obtain informed consent,” she said. “It’s being able to apply ethical reasoning to each unique situation. If you don’t have the training to do that, then of course you’re just following the IRB rules, which are very impersonal and really out of sync with the true nature of what we’re doing.” 

Researchers also raise concerns that, in many cases, the regulatory process harms vulnerable populations rather than safeguards them. Fisher and psychological scientist Brian Mustanski of University of Illinois at Chicago wrote in 2016, for example, that the review panels may be hindering HIV prevention strategies by requiring researchers to get parental consent before including gay and bisexual adolescents in their studies. Under that requirement, youth who are not out to their families get excluded. Boards apply those restrictions even in states permitting minors to get HIV testing and preventive medication without parental permission—and even though federal rules allow IRBs to waive parental consent in research settings (Mustanski & Fisher, 2016) 

IRBs also place counterproductive safety limits on suicide and self-harm research, watching for any sign that a participant might need to be removed from a clinical study and hospitalized. 

“The problem is we know that hospitalization is not the panacea,” Fisher said. “It stops suicidality for the moment, but actually the highest-risk period is 3 months after the first hospitalization for a suicide attempt. Some of the IRBs fail to consider that a non-hospitalization intervention that’s being tested is just as safe as hospitalization. It’s a difficult problem, and I don’t blame them. But if we have to take people out of a study as soon as they reach a certain level of suicidality, then we’ll never find effective treatment.” 

Communication gaps  

Supporters of the institutional review process say researchers tend to approach the IRB process too defensively, overlooking the board’s good intentions.  

“Obtaining clarification or requesting further materials serve to verify that protections are in place,” a team of institutional reviewers wrote in an editorial for  Psi Chi Journal of Psychological Research . “If researchers assume that IRBs are collaborators in the research process, then these requests can be seen as prompts rather than as admonitions” (Domenech Rodriguez et al., 2017). 

Fisher agrees that researchers’ attitudes play a considerable role in the conflicts that arise over ethics review. She recommends researchers develop each protocol with review-board questions in mind (see sidebar). 

“For many researchers, there’s a disdain for IRBs,” she said. “IRBs are trying their hardest. They don’t want to reject research. It’s just that they’re not informed. And sometimes if behavioral scientists or social scientists are disdainful of their IRBs, they’re not communicating with them.” 

Some researchers are building evidence to help IRBs understand the level of risk associated with certain types of psychological studies.  

• In a study involving more than 500 undergraduate students, for example, psychological scientists at the University of New Mexico found that the participants were less upset than expected by questionnaires about sex, trauma , and other sensitive topics. This finding, the researchers reported in  Psychological Science , challenges the usual IRB assumption about the stress that surveys on sex and trauma might inflict on participants (Yeater et al., 2012). 
• A study involving undergraduate women indicated that participants who had experienced child abuse , although more likely than their peers to report distress from recalling the past as part of a study, were also more likely to say that their involvement in the research helped them gain insight into themselves and hoped it would help others (Decker et al., 2011). 
• A multidisciplinary team, including APS Fellow R. Michael Furr of Wake Forest University, found that adolescent psychiatric patients showed a drop in suicide ideation after being questioned regularly about their suicidal thoughts over the course of 2 years. This countered concerns that asking about suicidal ideation would trigger an increase in such thinking (Mathias et al., 2012). 
• A meta-analysis of more than 70 participant samples—totaling nearly 74,000 individuals—indicated that people may experience only moderate distress when discussing past traumas in research studies. They also generally might find their participation to be a positive experience, according to the findings (Jaffe et al., 2015). 

The takeaways  

So, are the historians correct? Would any of these classic experiments survive IRB scrutiny today? 

Reexaminations of those studies make the question arguably moot. Recent revelations about some of these studies suggest that scientific integrity concerns may taint the legacy of those findings as much as their impact on participants did (Le Texier, 2019, Resnick, 2018; Perry, 2018).  

Also, not every aspect of the controversial classics is taboo in today’s regulatory environment. Scientists have won IRB approval to conceptually replicate both the Milgram and Stanford prison experiments (Burger, 2009; Reicher & Haslam, 2006). They simply modified the protocols to avert any potential harm to the participants. (Scholars, including Zimbardo himself, have questioned the robustness of those replication findings [Elms, 2009; Miller, 2009; Zimbardo, 2006].) 

Many scholars believe there are clear and valuable lessons from the classic experiments. Milgram’s work, for instance, can inject clarity into pressing societal issues such as political polarization and police brutality . Ethics training and monitoring simply need to include those lessons learned, they say. 

“We should absolutely be talking about what Milgram did right, what he did wrong,” Schrag said. “We can talk about what we can learn from that experience and how we might answer important questions while respecting the rights of volunteers who participate in psychological experiments.”  

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References   

Burger, J. M. (2009). Replicating Milgram: Would people still obey today? American Psychologist , 64 (1), 1–11. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0010932  

Ceci, S. J. & Bruck, M. (2009). Do IRBs pass the minimal harm test? Perspectives on Psychological Science , 4 (1), 28–29. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1745-6924.2009.01084.x   

Decker, S. E., Naugle, A. E., Carter-Visscher, R., Bell, K., & Seifer, A. (2011). Ethical issues in research on sensitive topics: Participants’ experiences of stress and benefit . Journal of Empirical Research on Human Research Ethics: An International Journal , 6 (3), 55–64. https://doi.org/10.1525/jer.2011.6.3.55  

Domenech Rodriguez, M. M., Corralejo, S. M., Vouvalis, N., & Mirly, A. K. (2017). Institutional review board: Ally not adversary. Psi Chi Journal of Psychological Research , 22 (2), 76–84.  https://doi.org/10.24839/2325-7342.JN22.2.76  

Elms, A. C. (2009). Obedience lite. American Psychologist , 64 (1), 32–36.  https://doi.org/10.1037/a0014473

Fisher, C. B., True, G., Alexander, L., & Fried, A. L. (2009). Measures of mentoring, department climate, and graduate student preparedness in the responsible conduct of psychological research. Ethics & Behavior , 19 (3), 227–252. https://doi.org/10.1080/10508420902886726  

Jaffe, A. E., DiLillo, D., Hoffman, L., Haikalis, M., & Dykstra, R. E. (2015). Does it hurt to ask? A meta-analysis of participant reactions to trauma research. Clinical Psychology Review , 40 , 40–56. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cpr.2015.05.004  

Le Texier, T. (2019). Debunking the Stanford Prison experiment. American Psychologist , 74 (7), 823–839. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/amp0000401  

Mathias, C. W., Furr, R. M., Sheftall, A. H., Hill-Kapturczak, N., Crum, P., & Dougherty, D. M. (2012). What’s the harm in asking about suicide ideation? Suicide and Life-Threatening Behavior , 42 (3), 341–351. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1943-278X.2012.0095.x  

Miller, A. G. (2009). Reflections on “Replicating Milgram” (Burger, 2009). American Psychologist , 64 (1), 20–27. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0014407  

Mustanski, B., & Fisher, C. B. (2016). HIV rates are increasing in gay/bisexual teens: IRB barriers to research must be resolved to bend the curve.  American Journal of Preventive Medicine ,  51 (2), 249–252. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.amepre.2016.02.026  

Perry, G. (2018). The lost boys: Inside Muzafer Sherif’s Robbers Cave experiment. Scribe Publications.  

Reicher, S. & Haslam, S. A. (2006). Rethinking the psychology of tyranny: The BBC prison study. British Journal of Social Psychology , 45 , 1–40. https://doi.org/10.1348/014466605X48998  

Resnick, B. (2018, June 13). The Stanford prison experiment was massively influential. We just learned it was a fraud. Vox. https://www.vox.com/2018/6/13/17449118/stanford-prison-experiment-fraud-psychology-replication  

Schrag, Z. M. (2010). Ethical imperialism: Institutional review boards and the social sciences, 1965–2009 . Johns Hopkins University Press. 

Tolich, M. (2014). What can Milgram and Zimbardo teach ethics committees and qualitative researchers about minimal harm? Research Ethics , 10 (2), 86–96. https://doi.org/10.1177/1747016114523771  

Yeater, E., Miller, G., Rinehart, J., & Nason, E. (2012). Trauma and sex surveys meet minimal risk standards: Implications for institutional review boards.  Psychological Science , 23 (7), 780–787. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797611435131  

Zimbardo, P. G. (2006). On rethinking the psychology of tyranny: The BBC prison study. British Journal of Social Psychology , 45 , 47–53. https://doi.org/10.1348/014466605X81720  

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The Use of Research Methods in Psychological Research: A Systematised Review

Salomé elizabeth scholtz.

1 Community Psychosocial Research (COMPRES), School of Psychosocial Health, North-West University, Potchefstroom, South Africa

Werner de Klerk

Leon t. de beer.

2 WorkWell Research Institute, North-West University, Potchefstroom, South Africa

Research methods play an imperative role in research quality as well as educating young researchers, however, the application thereof is unclear which can be detrimental to the field of psychology. Therefore, this systematised review aimed to determine what research methods are being used, how these methods are being used and for what topics in the field. Our review of 999 articles from five journals over a period of 5 years indicated that psychology research is conducted in 10 topics via predominantly quantitative research methods. Of these 10 topics, social psychology was the most popular. The remainder of the conducted methodology is described. It was also found that articles lacked rigour and transparency in the used methodology which has implications for replicability. In conclusion this article, provides an overview of all reported methodologies used in a sample of psychology journals. It highlights the popularity and application of methods and designs throughout the article sample as well as an unexpected lack of rigour with regard to most aspects of methodology. Possible sample bias should be considered when interpreting the results of this study. It is recommended that future research should utilise the results of this study to determine the possible impact on the field of psychology as a science and to further investigation into the use of research methods. Results should prompt the following future research into: a lack or rigour and its implication on replication, the use of certain methods above others, publication bias and choice of sampling method.

Introduction

Psychology is an ever-growing and popular field (Gough and Lyons, 2016 ; Clay, 2017 ). Due to this growth and the need for science-based research to base health decisions on (Perestelo-Pérez, 2013 ), the use of research methods in the broad field of psychology is an essential point of investigation (Stangor, 2011 ; Aanstoos, 2014 ). Research methods are therefore viewed as important tools used by researchers to collect data (Nieuwenhuis, 2016 ) and include the following: quantitative, qualitative, mixed method and multi method (Maree, 2016 ). Additionally, researchers also employ various types of literature reviews to address research questions (Grant and Booth, 2009 ). According to literature, what research method is used and why a certain research method is used is complex as it depends on various factors that may include paradigm (O'Neil and Koekemoer, 2016 ), research question (Grix, 2002 ), or the skill and exposure of the researcher (Nind et al., 2015 ). How these research methods are employed is also difficult to discern as research methods are often depicted as having fixed boundaries that are continuously crossed in research (Johnson et al., 2001 ; Sandelowski, 2011 ). Examples of this crossing include adding quantitative aspects to qualitative studies (Sandelowski et al., 2009 ), or stating that a study used a mixed-method design without the study having any characteristics of this design (Truscott et al., 2010 ).

The inappropriate use of research methods affects how students and researchers improve and utilise their research skills (Scott Jones and Goldring, 2015 ), how theories are developed (Ngulube, 2013 ), and the credibility of research results (Levitt et al., 2017 ). This, in turn, can be detrimental to the field (Nind et al., 2015 ), journal publication (Ketchen et al., 2008 ; Ezeh et al., 2010 ), and attempts to address public social issues through psychological research (Dweck, 2017 ). This is especially important given the now well-known replication crisis the field is facing (Earp and Trafimow, 2015 ; Hengartner, 2018 ).

Due to this lack of clarity on method use and the potential impact of inept use of research methods, the aim of this study was to explore the use of research methods in the field of psychology through a review of journal publications. Chaichanasakul et al. ( 2011 ) identify reviewing articles as the opportunity to examine the development, growth and progress of a research area and overall quality of a journal. Studies such as Lee et al. ( 1999 ) as well as Bluhm et al. ( 2011 ) review of qualitative methods has attempted to synthesis the use of research methods and indicated the growth of qualitative research in American and European journals. Research has also focused on the use of research methods in specific sub-disciplines of psychology, for example, in the field of Industrial and Organisational psychology Coetzee and Van Zyl ( 2014 ) found that South African publications tend to consist of cross-sectional quantitative research methods with underrepresented longitudinal studies. Qualitative studies were found to make up 21% of the articles published from 1995 to 2015 in a similar study by O'Neil and Koekemoer ( 2016 ). Other methods in health psychology, such as Mixed methods research have also been reportedly growing in popularity (O'Cathain, 2009 ).

A broad overview of the use of research methods in the field of psychology as a whole is however, not available in the literature. Therefore, our research focused on answering what research methods are being used, how these methods are being used and for what topics in practice (i.e., journal publications) in order to provide a general perspective of method used in psychology publication. We synthesised the collected data into the following format: research topic [areas of scientific discourse in a field or the current needs of a population (Bittermann and Fischer, 2018 )], method [data-gathering tools (Nieuwenhuis, 2016 )], sampling [elements chosen from a population to partake in research (Ritchie et al., 2009 )], data collection [techniques and research strategy (Maree, 2016 )], and data analysis [discovering information by examining bodies of data (Ktepi, 2016 )]. A systematised review of recent articles (2013 to 2017) collected from five different journals in the field of psychological research was conducted.

Grant and Booth ( 2009 ) describe systematised reviews as the review of choice for post-graduate studies, which is employed using some elements of a systematic review and seldom more than one or two databases to catalogue studies after a comprehensive literature search. The aspects used in this systematised review that are similar to that of a systematic review were a full search within the chosen database and data produced in tabular form (Grant and Booth, 2009 ).

Sample sizes and timelines vary in systematised reviews (see Lowe and Moore, 2014 ; Pericall and Taylor, 2014 ; Barr-Walker, 2017 ). With no clear parameters identified in the literature (see Grant and Booth, 2009 ), the sample size of this study was determined by the purpose of the sample (Strydom, 2011 ), and time and cost constraints (Maree and Pietersen, 2016 ). Thus, a non-probability purposive sample (Ritchie et al., 2009 ) of the top five psychology journals from 2013 to 2017 was included in this research study. Per Lee ( 2015 ) American Psychological Association (APA) recommends the use of the most up-to-date sources for data collection with consideration of the context of the research study. As this research study focused on the most recent trends in research methods used in the broad field of psychology, the identified time frame was deemed appropriate.

Psychology journals were only included if they formed part of the top five English journals in the miscellaneous psychology domain of the Scimago Journal and Country Rank (Scimago Journal & Country Rank, 2017 ). The Scimago Journal and Country Rank provides a yearly updated list of publicly accessible journal and country-specific indicators derived from the Scopus® database (Scopus, 2017b ) by means of the Scimago Journal Rank (SJR) indicator developed by Scimago from the algorithm Google PageRank™ (Scimago Journal & Country Rank, 2017 ). Scopus is the largest global database of abstracts and citations from peer-reviewed journals (Scopus, 2017a ). Reasons for the development of the Scimago Journal and Country Rank list was to allow researchers to assess scientific domains, compare country rankings, and compare and analyse journals (Scimago Journal & Country Rank, 2017 ), which supported the aim of this research study. Additionally, the goals of the journals had to focus on topics in psychology in general with no preference to specific research methods and have full-text access to articles.

The following list of top five journals in 2018 fell within the abovementioned inclusion criteria (1) Australian Journal of Psychology, (2) British Journal of Psychology, (3) Europe's Journal of Psychology, (4) International Journal of Psychology and lastly the (5) Journal of Psychology Applied and Interdisciplinary.

Journals were excluded from this systematised review if no full-text versions of their articles were available, if journals explicitly stated a publication preference for certain research methods, or if the journal only published articles in a specific discipline of psychological research (for example, industrial psychology, clinical psychology etc.).

The researchers followed a procedure (see Figure 1 ) adapted from that of Ferreira et al. ( 2016 ) for systematised reviews. Data collection and categorisation commenced on 4 December 2017 and continued until 30 June 2019. All the data was systematically collected and coded manually (Grant and Booth, 2009 ) with an independent person acting as co-coder. Codes of interest included the research topic, method used, the design used, sampling method, and methodology (the method used for data collection and data analysis). These codes were derived from the wording in each article. Themes were created based on the derived codes and checked by the co-coder. Lastly, these themes were catalogued into a table as per the systematised review design.

Systematised review procedure.

According to Johnston et al. ( 2019 ), “literature screening, selection, and data extraction/analyses” (p. 7) are specifically tailored to the aim of a review. Therefore, the steps followed in a systematic review must be reported in a comprehensive and transparent manner. The chosen systematised design adhered to the rigour expected from systematic reviews with regard to full search and data produced in tabular form (Grant and Booth, 2009 ). The rigorous application of the systematic review is, therefore discussed in relation to these two elements.

Firstly, to ensure a comprehensive search, this research study promoted review transparency by following a clear protocol outlined according to each review stage before collecting data (Johnston et al., 2019 ). This protocol was similar to that of Ferreira et al. ( 2016 ) and approved by three research committees/stakeholders and the researchers (Johnston et al., 2019 ). The eligibility criteria for article inclusion was based on the research question and clearly stated, and the process of inclusion was recorded on an electronic spreadsheet to create an evidence trail (Bandara et al., 2015 ; Johnston et al., 2019 ). Microsoft Excel spreadsheets are a popular tool for review studies and can increase the rigour of the review process (Bandara et al., 2015 ). Screening for appropriate articles for inclusion forms an integral part of a systematic review process (Johnston et al., 2019 ). This step was applied to two aspects of this research study: the choice of eligible journals and articles to be included. Suitable journals were selected by the first author and reviewed by the second and third authors. Initially, all articles from the chosen journals were included. Then, by process of elimination, those irrelevant to the research aim, i.e., interview articles or discussions etc., were excluded.

To ensure rigourous data extraction, data was first extracted by one reviewer, and an independent person verified the results for completeness and accuracy (Johnston et al., 2019 ). The research question served as a guide for efficient, organised data extraction (Johnston et al., 2019 ). Data was categorised according to the codes of interest, along with article identifiers for audit trails such as authors, title and aims of articles. The categorised data was based on the aim of the review (Johnston et al., 2019 ) and synthesised in tabular form under methods used, how these methods were used, and for what topics in the field of psychology.

The initial search produced a total of 1,145 articles from the 5 journals identified. Inclusion and exclusion criteria resulted in a final sample of 999 articles ( Figure 2 ). Articles were co-coded into 84 codes, from which 10 themes were derived ( Table 1 ).

Journal article frequency.

Codes used to form themes (research topics).

These 10 themes represent the topic section of our research question ( Figure 3 ). All these topics except, for the final one, psychological practice , were found to concur with the research areas in psychology as identified by Weiten ( 2010 ). These research areas were chosen to represent the derived codes as they provided broad definitions that allowed for clear, concise categorisation of the vast amount of data. Article codes were categorised under particular themes/topics if they adhered to the research area definitions created by Weiten ( 2010 ). It is important to note that these areas of research do not refer to specific disciplines in psychology, such as industrial psychology; but to broader fields that may encompass sub-interests of these disciplines.

Topic frequency (international sample).

In the case of developmental psychology , researchers conduct research into human development from childhood to old age. Social psychology includes research on behaviour governed by social drivers. Researchers in the field of educational psychology study how people learn and the best way to teach them. Health psychology aims to determine the effect of psychological factors on physiological health. Physiological psychology , on the other hand, looks at the influence of physiological aspects on behaviour. Experimental psychology is not the only theme that uses experimental research and focuses on the traditional core topics of psychology (for example, sensation). Cognitive psychology studies the higher mental processes. Psychometrics is concerned with measuring capacity or behaviour. Personality research aims to assess and describe consistency in human behaviour (Weiten, 2010 ). The final theme of psychological practice refers to the experiences, techniques, and interventions employed by practitioners, researchers, and academia in the field of psychology.

Articles under these themes were further subdivided into methodologies: method, sampling, design, data collection, and data analysis. The categorisation was based on information stated in the articles and not inferred by the researchers. Data were compiled into two sets of results presented in this article. The first set addresses the aim of this study from the perspective of the topics identified. The second set of results represents a broad overview of the results from the perspective of the methodology employed. The second set of results are discussed in this article, while the first set is presented in table format. The discussion thus provides a broad overview of methods use in psychology (across all themes), while the table format provides readers with in-depth insight into methods used in the individual themes identified. We believe that presenting the data from both perspectives allow readers a broad understanding of the results. Due a large amount of information that made up our results, we followed Cichocka and Jost ( 2014 ) in simplifying our results. Please note that the numbers indicated in the table in terms of methodology differ from the total number of articles. Some articles employed more than one method/sampling technique/design/data collection method/data analysis in their studies.

What follows is the results for what methods are used, how these methods are used, and which topics in psychology they are applied to . Percentages are reported to the second decimal in order to highlight small differences in the occurrence of methodology.

Firstly, with regard to the research methods used, our results show that researchers are more likely to use quantitative research methods (90.22%) compared to all other research methods. Qualitative research was the second most common research method but only made up about 4.79% of the general method usage. Reviews occurred almost as much as qualitative studies (3.91%), as the third most popular method. Mixed-methods research studies (0.98%) occurred across most themes, whereas multi-method research was indicated in only one study and amounted to 0.10% of the methods identified. The specific use of each method in the topics identified is shown in Table 2 and Figure 4 .

Research methods in psychology.

Research method frequency in topics.

Secondly, in the case of how these research methods are employed , our study indicated the following.

Sampling −78.34% of the studies in the collected articles did not specify a sampling method. From the remainder of the studies, 13 types of sampling methods were identified. These sampling methods included broad categorisation of a sample as, for example, a probability or non-probability sample. General samples of convenience were the methods most likely to be applied (10.34%), followed by random sampling (3.51%), snowball sampling (2.73%), and purposive (1.37%) and cluster sampling (1.27%). The remainder of the sampling methods occurred to a more limited extent (0–1.0%). See Table 3 and Figure 5 for sampling methods employed in each topic.

Sampling use in the field of psychology.

Sampling method frequency in topics.

Designs were categorised based on the articles' statement thereof. Therefore, it is important to note that, in the case of quantitative studies, non-experimental designs (25.55%) were often indicated due to a lack of experiments and any other indication of design, which, according to Laher ( 2016 ), is a reasonable categorisation. Non-experimental designs should thus be compared with experimental designs only in the description of data, as it could include the use of correlational/cross-sectional designs, which were not overtly stated by the authors. For the remainder of the research methods, “not stated” (7.12%) was assigned to articles without design types indicated.

From the 36 identified designs the most popular designs were cross-sectional (23.17%) and experimental (25.64%), which concurred with the high number of quantitative studies. Longitudinal studies (3.80%), the third most popular design, was used in both quantitative and qualitative studies. Qualitative designs consisted of ethnography (0.38%), interpretative phenomenological designs/phenomenology (0.28%), as well as narrative designs (0.28%). Studies that employed the review method were mostly categorised as “not stated,” with the most often stated review designs being systematic reviews (0.57%). The few mixed method studies employed exploratory, explanatory (0.09%), and concurrent designs (0.19%), with some studies referring to separate designs for the qualitative and quantitative methods. The one study that identified itself as a multi-method study used a longitudinal design. Please see how these designs were employed in each specific topic in Table 4 , Figure 6 .

Design use in the field of psychology.

Design frequency in topics.

Data collection and analysis —data collection included 30 methods, with the data collection method most often employed being questionnaires (57.84%). The experimental task (16.56%) was the second most preferred collection method, which included established or unique tasks designed by the researchers. Cognitive ability tests (6.84%) were also regularly used along with various forms of interviewing (7.66%). Table 5 and Figure 7 represent data collection use in the various topics. Data analysis consisted of 3,857 occurrences of data analysis categorised into ±188 various data analysis techniques shown in Table 6 and Figures 1 – 7 . Descriptive statistics were the most commonly used (23.49%) along with correlational analysis (17.19%). When using a qualitative method, researchers generally employed thematic analysis (0.52%) or different forms of analysis that led to coding and the creation of themes. Review studies presented few data analysis methods, with most studies categorising their results. Mixed method and multi-method studies followed the analysis methods identified for the qualitative and quantitative studies included.

Data collection in the field of psychology.

Data collection frequency in topics.

Data analysis in the field of psychology.

Results of the topics researched in psychology can be seen in the tables, as previously stated in this article. It is noteworthy that, of the 10 topics, social psychology accounted for 43.54% of the studies, with cognitive psychology the second most popular research topic at 16.92%. The remainder of the topics only occurred in 4.0–7.0% of the articles considered. A list of the included 999 articles is available under the section “View Articles” on the following website: https://methodgarden.xtrapolate.io/ . This website was created by Scholtz et al. ( 2019 ) to visually present a research framework based on this Article's results.

This systematised review categorised full-length articles from five international journals across the span of 5 years to provide insight into the use of research methods in the field of psychology. Results indicated what methods are used how these methods are being used and for what topics (why) in the included sample of articles. The results should be seen as providing insight into method use and by no means a comprehensive representation of the aforementioned aim due to the limited sample. To our knowledge, this is the first research study to address this topic in this manner. Our discussion attempts to promote a productive way forward in terms of the key results for method use in psychology, especially in the field of academia (Holloway, 2008 ).

With regard to the methods used, our data stayed true to literature, finding only common research methods (Grant and Booth, 2009 ; Maree, 2016 ) that varied in the degree to which they were employed. Quantitative research was found to be the most popular method, as indicated by literature (Breen and Darlaston-Jones, 2010 ; Counsell and Harlow, 2017 ) and previous studies in specific areas of psychology (see Coetzee and Van Zyl, 2014 ). Its long history as the first research method (Leech et al., 2007 ) in the field of psychology as well as researchers' current application of mathematical approaches in their studies (Toomela, 2010 ) might contribute to its popularity today. Whatever the case may be, our results show that, despite the growth in qualitative research (Demuth, 2015 ; Smith and McGannon, 2018 ), quantitative research remains the first choice for article publication in these journals. Despite the included journals indicating openness to articles that apply any research methods. This finding may be due to qualitative research still being seen as a new method (Burman and Whelan, 2011 ) or reviewers' standards being higher for qualitative studies (Bluhm et al., 2011 ). Future research is encouraged into the possible biasness in publication of research methods, additionally further investigation with a different sample into the proclaimed growth of qualitative research may also provide different results.

Review studies were found to surpass that of multi-method and mixed method studies. To this effect Grant and Booth ( 2009 ), state that the increased awareness, journal contribution calls as well as its efficiency in procuring research funds all promote the popularity of reviews. The low frequency of mixed method studies contradicts the view in literature that it's the third most utilised research method (Tashakkori and Teddlie's, 2003 ). Its' low occurrence in this sample could be due to opposing views on mixing methods (Gunasekare, 2015 ) or that authors prefer publishing in mixed method journals, when using this method, or its relative novelty (Ivankova et al., 2016 ). Despite its low occurrence, the application of the mixed methods design in articles was methodologically clear in all cases which were not the case for the remainder of research methods.

Additionally, a substantial number of studies used a combination of methodologies that are not mixed or multi-method studies. Perceived fixed boundaries are according to literature often set aside, as confirmed by this result, in order to investigate the aim of a study, which could create a new and helpful way of understanding the world (Gunasekare, 2015 ). According to Toomela ( 2010 ), this is not unheard of and could be considered a form of “structural systemic science,” as in the case of qualitative methodology (observation) applied in quantitative studies (experimental design) for example. Based on this result, further research into this phenomenon as well as its implications for research methods such as multi and mixed methods is recommended.

Discerning how these research methods were applied, presented some difficulty. In the case of sampling, most studies—regardless of method—did mention some form of inclusion and exclusion criteria, but no definite sampling method. This result, along with the fact that samples often consisted of students from the researchers' own academic institutions, can contribute to literature and debates among academics (Peterson and Merunka, 2014 ; Laher, 2016 ). Samples of convenience and students as participants especially raise questions about the generalisability and applicability of results (Peterson and Merunka, 2014 ). This is because attention to sampling is important as inappropriate sampling can debilitate the legitimacy of interpretations (Onwuegbuzie and Collins, 2017 ). Future investigation into the possible implications of this reported popular use of convenience samples for the field of psychology as well as the reason for this use could provide interesting insight, and is encouraged by this study.

Additionally, and this is indicated in Table 6 , articles seldom report the research designs used, which highlights the pressing aspect of the lack of rigour in the included sample. Rigour with regards to the applied empirical method is imperative in promoting psychology as a science (American Psychological Association, 2020 ). Omitting parts of the research process in publication when it could have been used to inform others' research skills should be questioned, and the influence on the process of replicating results should be considered. Publications are often rejected due to a lack of rigour in the applied method and designs (Fonseca, 2013 ; Laher, 2016 ), calling for increased clarity and knowledge of method application. Replication is a critical part of any field of scientific research and requires the “complete articulation” of the study methods used (Drotar, 2010 , p. 804). The lack of thorough description could be explained by the requirements of certain journals to only report on certain aspects of a research process, especially with regard to the applied design (Laher, 20). However, naming aspects such as sampling and designs, is a requirement according to the APA's Journal Article Reporting Standards (JARS-Quant) (Appelbaum et al., 2018 ). With very little information on how a study was conducted, authors lose a valuable opportunity to enhance research validity, enrich the knowledge of others, and contribute to the growth of psychology and methodology as a whole. In the case of this research study, it also restricted our results to only reported samples and designs, which indicated a preference for certain designs, such as cross-sectional designs for quantitative studies.

Data collection and analysis were for the most part clearly stated. A key result was the versatile use of questionnaires. Researchers would apply a questionnaire in various ways, for example in questionnaire interviews, online surveys, and written questionnaires across most research methods. This may highlight a trend for future research.

With regard to the topics these methods were employed for, our research study found a new field named “psychological practice.” This result may show the growing consciousness of researchers as part of the research process (Denzin and Lincoln, 2003 ), psychological practice, and knowledge generation. The most popular of these topics was social psychology, which is generously covered in journals and by learning societies, as testaments of the institutional support and richness social psychology has in the field of psychology (Chryssochoou, 2015 ). The APA's perspective on 2018 trends in psychology also identifies an increased amount of psychology focus on how social determinants are influencing people's health (Deangelis, 2017 ).

This study was not without limitations and the following should be taken into account. Firstly, this study used a sample of five specific journals to address the aim of the research study, despite general journal aims (as stated on journal websites), this inclusion signified a bias towards the research methods published in these specific journals only and limited generalisability. A broader sample of journals over a different period of time, or a single journal over a longer period of time might provide different results. A second limitation is the use of Excel spreadsheets and an electronic system to log articles, which was a manual process and therefore left room for error (Bandara et al., 2015 ). To address this potential issue, co-coding was performed to reduce error. Lastly, this article categorised data based on the information presented in the article sample; there was no interpretation of what methodology could have been applied or whether the methods stated adhered to the criteria for the methods used. Thus, a large number of articles that did not clearly indicate a research method or design could influence the results of this review. However, this in itself was also a noteworthy result. Future research could review research methods of a broader sample of journals with an interpretive review tool that increases rigour. Additionally, the authors also encourage the future use of systematised review designs as a way to promote a concise procedure in applying this design.

Our research study presented the use of research methods for published articles in the field of psychology as well as recommendations for future research based on these results. Insight into the complex questions identified in literature, regarding what methods are used how these methods are being used and for what topics (why) was gained. This sample preferred quantitative methods, used convenience sampling and presented a lack of rigorous accounts for the remaining methodologies. All methodologies that were clearly indicated in the sample were tabulated to allow researchers insight into the general use of methods and not only the most frequently used methods. The lack of rigorous account of research methods in articles was represented in-depth for each step in the research process and can be of vital importance to address the current replication crisis within the field of psychology. Recommendations for future research aimed to motivate research into the practical implications of the results for psychology, for example, publication bias and the use of convenience samples.

Ethics Statement

This study was cleared by the North-West University Health Research Ethics Committee: NWU-00115-17-S1.

Author Contributions

All authors listed have made a substantial, direct and intellectual contribution to the work, and approved it for publication.

Conflict of Interest

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

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If Faces Appear Distorted, You Could Have This Condition

Research presents a unique case of a patient with prosopometamorphopsia.

COVID-19 Can Cause 'Face Blindness'

Imagine if every time you saw a face, it appeared distorted. For those who have a very rare condition known as prosopometamorphopsia, which causes facial features to appear distorted, that is reality.

As the website on what is known as PMO explains, “‘Prosopo’ comes from the Greek word for face ‘prosopon’ while ‘metamorphopsia’ refers to perceptual distortions.” The distortions can affect the shape, size, color, and position of facial features, and PMO can last for days, weeks, or even years.

A new Dartmouth study published in the “Clinical Pictures” section of The Lancet reports on a unique case of a patient with PMO. The research is among the first to provide realistic visualizations of how a patient experienced facial distortions.

The patient, a 58-year-old male with PMO, sees faces without any distortions when viewed on a screen and on paper but sees distorted faces that appear “demonic” when viewed in-person. The case is especially rare because he does not see distortions of faces across all contexts.

For the study, the researchers took a photograph of a person’s face. Then, they showed the patient the photograph on a computer screen while he looked at the real face of the same person. The researchers obtained real-time feedback from the patient on how the face on the screen and the real face in front of him differed, as they modified the photograph using computer software to match the distortions perceived by the patient.

Through the process, we were able to visualize the patient’s real-time perception of the face distortions.

“In other studies of the condition, patients with PMO are unable to assess how accurately a visualization of their distortions represents what they see because the visualization itself also depicts a face, so the patients will perceive distortions on it too,” says lead author Antônio Mello , Guarini, a PhD student in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences .

In contrast, this patient doesn’t see distortions on a screen. This means that the researchers were able to modify the face in the photograph, and the patient could accurately compare how similar his perception of the real face was to the manipulated photograph. “Through the process, we were able to visualize the patient’s real-time perception of the face distortions,” says Mello.

In their research with other PMO cases, the co-authors state that some of their PMO participants have seen health professionals who wanted to help, but diagnosed them with another health condition, not PMO.

“We’ve heard from multiple people with PMO that they have been diagnosed by psychiatrists as having schizophrenia and put on anti-psychotics, when their condition is a problem with the visual system,” says senior author Brad Duchaine , a professor of psychological and brain sciences and principal investigator of the Social Perception Lab at Dartmouth.

“And it’s not uncommon for people who have PMO to not tell others about their problem with face perception because they fear others will think the distortions are a sign of a psychiatric disorder,” says Duchaine. “It’s a problem that people often don’t understand.”

Through their paper, the researchers hope to increase public awareness of what PMO is .

Daniel Stehr at Dartmouth and Professor of Neurology Krzysztof Bujarski at the Geisel School of Medicine also contributed to the study.

Amy Olson can be reached at [email protected] .

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The Top 10 Psychology Studies of 2010

Ten great studies from 2010 that can improve your life..

Posted December 20, 2010

The end of 2010 fast approaches, and I'm thrilled to have been asked by the editors of Psychology Today to write about the Top 10 psychology studies of the year. I've focused on studies that I personally feel stand out, not only as examples of great science, but even more importantly, as examples of how the science of psychology can improve our lives.

Each study has a clear "take home" message, offering the reader an insight or a simple strategy they can use to reach their goals , strengthen their relationships, make better decisions, or become happier. If you extract the wisdom from these ten studies and apply them in your own life, 2011 just might be a very good year.

1) How to Break Bad Habits

If you are trying to stop smoking , swearing, or chewing your nails, you have probably tried the strategy of distracting yourself - taking your mind off whatever it is you are trying not to do - to break the habit. You may also have realized by now that it doesn't work. Distraction is a great way to resist a passing temptation, but it turns out to be a terrible way to break a habit that has really taken hold.

That's because habit-behaviors happen automatically - often, without our awareness. So thinking about George Clooney isn't going to stop me from biting my nails if I don't realize I'm doing it in the first place.

What you need to do instead is focus on stopping the behavior before it starts (or, as psychologists tend to put it, you need to "inhibit" your bad behavior). According to research by Jeffrey Quinn and his colleagues, the most effective strategy for breaking a bad habit is vigilant monitoring - focusing your attention on the unwanted behavior to make sure you don't engage in it. In other words, thinking to yourself "Don't do it!" and watching out for slipups - the very opposite of distraction. If you stick with it, the use of this strategy can inhibit the behavior completely over time, and you can be free of your bad habit for good.

J. Quinn, A. Pascoe, W. Wood, & D. Neal (2010) Can't control yourself? Monitor those bad habits. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 36, 499-511.

2) How to Make Everything Seem Easier

Most of us have grown accustomed to the idea that our moods, and even our judgments, can be influenced by unrelated experiences of sight and sound - we feel happier on sunny days, more relaxed when listening to certain kinds of music, and more likely to lose our tempers when it's hot and humid. But very few of us have even considered the possibility that our tactile experience - the sensations associated with the things we touch, might have this same power.

New research by Joshua Ackerman, Christopher Nocera, and John Bargh shows that the weight, texture, and hardness of the things we touch are, in fact, unconsciously factored into our decisions about things that have nothing to do with what we are touching.

For instance, we associate smoothness and roughness with ease and difficulty, respectively, as in expressions like "smooth sailing," and "rough road ahead." In one study, people who completed a puzzle with pieces that had been covered in sandpaper later described an interaction between two other individuals as more difficult and awkward than those whose puzzles had been smooth. (Tip: Never try to buy a car or negotiate a raise while wearing a wool sweater. Consider satin underpants instead. Everything seems easy in satin underpants.)

J. Ackerman, C. Nocera, and J. Bargh (2010) Incidental haptic sensations influence social judgments and decisions. Science, 328, 1712- 1715.

3) How To Manage Your Time Better

Good time management starts with figuring out what tasks you need to accomplish, and how long each will take. The problem is, human beings are generally pretty lousy when it comes to estimating the time they will need to complete any task. Psychologists refer to this as the planning fallacy, and it has the very real potential to screw up our plans and keep us from reaching our goals.

New research by Mario Weick and Ana Guinote shows that, somewhat ironically, people in positions of power are particularly poor planners. That's because feeling powerful tends to focus us on getting what we want, ignoring the potential obstacles that stand in our way. The future plans of powerful people often involve "best-case scenarios," which lead to far shorter time estimates than more realistic plans that take into account what might go wrong.

The good news is, you can learn to more accurately predict how long something will take and become a better planner, if you stop and consider potential obstacles, along with two other factors: your own past experiences (i.e., how long did it take last time?), and all the steps or subcomponents that make up the task (i.e., factoring in the time you'll need for each part.)

M. Weick & A. Guinote (2010) How long will it take? Power biases time predictions. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology.

4) How to Be Happier

Most of us tend to think that if we just had a bit more money we'd get more satisfaction out of life, but on the whole, this turns out not to be true. So why doesn't money make us happier? New research by Jordi Quoidbach and colleagues suggests that the answer lies, at least in part, in how wealthier people lose touch with their ability to savor life's pleasures.

Savoring is a way of increasing and prolonging our positive experiences. Taking time to experience the subtle flavors in a piece of dark chocolate, imaging the fun you'll have on an upcoming vacation (and leafing through your trip photos afterward), telling all your friends on Facebook about the hilarious movie you saw over the weekend - these are all acts of savoring, and they help us to squeeze every bit of joy out of the good things that happen to us.

Why, then, don't wealthier people savor, if it feels so good? It's obviously not for a lack of things to savor. The basic idea is that when you have the money to eat at fancy restaurants every night and buy designer clothes from chic boutiques, those experiences diminish the enjoyment you get out of the simpler, more everyday pleasures, like the smell of a steak sizzling on your backyard grill, or the bargain you got on the sweet little sundress from Target.

Create plans for how to inject more savoring into each day, and you will increase your happiness and well-being much more than (or even despite) your growing riches. And if you're riches aren't actually growing, then savoring is still a great way to truly appreciate what you do have.

J. Quoidbach, E. Dunn, K. Petrides, & M. Mikolajczak (2010) Money giveth, money taketh away: The dual effect of wealth on happiness. Psychological Science, 21, 759-763.

5) How to Have More Willpower

Do you have the willpower to get the job done, or have you found yourself giving in to temptations, distractions, and inaction when trying to reach your own goals? If it's the latter, you're not alone. But more importantly, you can do something about it. New research by Mark Muraven shows that our capacity for self-control is surprisingly like a muscle that can be strengthened by regular exercise.

Do you have a sweet tooth? Try giving up candy, even if weight-loss and cavity-prevention are not your goals. Hate exerting yourself physically? Go out and buy one of those handgrips you see the muscle men with at the gym - even if your goal is to pay your bills on time. In one study, after two weeks of sweets-abstinence and handgripping, Muraven found that participants had significantly improved on a difficult concentration task that required lots of self-control.

Just by working your willpower muscle regularly, engaging in simple actions that require small amounts of self-control - like sitting up straight or making your bed each day - you can develop the self-control strength you'll need to tackle all of your goals.

M. Muraven (2010) Building self-control strength: Practicing self-control leads to improved self-control performance. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 46, 465-468.

6) How to Choose a Mate

What role does personality play in creating marital bliss? More specifically, is it your personality, your partner's personality, or the similarity between the two that really matters when it comes to being happy in your marriage ? A study of over 10,000 couples from three countries provides us with some answers.

Your own personality is in fact a powerful predictor of your marital satisfaction. People who were more agreeable , conscientious , and emotionally stable reported being significantly happier with their spouse. That spouse's personality was also a reliable, though slightly less powerful, predictor of relationship satisfaction. Keep these same traits - the "Big 3" for happiness in a marriage - in mind when you are seeking Mr. or Ms. Right.

Finally, there's personality similarly - which, as it happens, doesn't seem to matter at all. The extent to which married couples matched one another on the Big Five traits had no predictive power when it came to understanding why some couples are happy together and others not. This is not to say that having similar goals or values isn't important - just that having similar personalities doesn't seem to be.

So if you are outgoing and your partner is shy , or if you are adventurous and your partner doesn't really like to try new things, it doesn't mean you can't have a satisfying marriage. Whether you are birds of a feather, or opposites that attracted, you are equally likely to live a long and happy life together.

Just try to be generally pleasant, responsible, and even-tempered, and find someone willing to do the same.

P. Dyrenforth, D. Kashy, M.B. Donnellan, & R. Lucas (2010) Predicting relationships and life satisfaction from personality in nationally representative samples from three countries: The relative importance of actor, partner, and similarity effects. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 99, 690-702.

7) How to Feel More Powerful

In the animal kingdom, alphas signal their dominance through body movement and posture. Human beings are no different. The most powerful guy in the room is usually the one whose physical movements are most expansive - legs apart, leaning forward, arms spread wide while he gestures. He's the CEO who isn't afraid to swing his feet up onto the conference room table, hands behind his head and elbows jutting outward, confident in his power to spread himself out however he damn well pleases.

The nervous, powerless person holds himself very differently - he makes himself physically as small as possible: shoulders hunched, feet together, hands in his lap or arms wrapped protectively across his chest. He's the guy in the corner who is hoping he won't be called on, and often is barely noticed.

We adopt these poses unconsciously, and they are perceived (also unconsciously) by others as indictors of our status. But a new set of studies by Dana Carney, Amy Cuddy, and Andy Yap reveals that the relationship between power and posing works in both directions. In other words, holding powerful poses can actually make you more powerful .

In their studies, posing in "high power" positions not only created psychological and behavioral changes typically associated with powerful people, it created physiological changes characteristic of the powerful as well. High power posers felt more powerful, were more willing to take risks, and experienced significant increases in testosterone along with decreases in cortisol (the body's chemical response to stress .)

If you want more power - not just the appearance of power, but the genuine feeling of power - then spread your limbs wide, stand up straight, and lean into the conversation. Carry yourself like the guy in charge, and in a matter of minutes your body will start to feel it, and you will start to believe it.

D. Carney, A. Cuddy, and A. Yap (2010) Power posing: Brief nonverbal displays affect neuroendocrine levels and risk tolerance. Psychological Science, 21, 1363-1368.

8) How To Tell If He Loves You

"If he really loved me, then he would..."

Everyone who's ever been in a relationship has had thoughts like this one. If he loved me he would bring me flowers, or compliment me more often, or remember my birthday, or remember to take out the damn garbage. We expect feelings of love to translate directly into loving behaviors, and often judge the quality and intensity of our partner's feelings through their more tangible expressions. When it comes to love, actions speak louder than words, right?

Well, not necessarily. According to new research by psychologists Lara Kammrath and Johanna Peetz, romantic feelings like love, intimacy , and commitment reliably lead to some loving behaviors, but not others. In their studies, love predicted spontaneous, in-the-moment acts of kindness and generosity , like saying "I love you," offering a back rub, or surprising your partner with a gourmet dinner - the kinds of loving actions that don't require much in the way of forethought, planning, or memory .

On the other hand, love does a lousy job of predicting the kinds of "loving" behaviors that are harder to perform, often because they have to be maintained over longer periods of time (e.g., remembering to do household chores without being asked, being nice to one's in-laws) or because there is a delay between the thought and the action (remembering to buy your wife a gift for her birthday next week, keeping a promise call home during your conference in Las Vegas.). When it comes to the harder stuff, it's how conscientious you are, rather than how much in love you are, that really matters.

So if you're trying to get a sense of how your partner really feels about you, the smaller, spontaneous acts of love that occur without much forethought are a much better indicator of the depth of his love than whether or not he remembers your birthday or to take out the trash.

L. Kammrath & J. Peetz (2010) The limits of love: Predicting immediate vs. sustained caring behaviors in close relationships. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology.

9) How to Make It Easier to Cut Your Losses

Sometimes, we don't know when to throw in the towel. As a project unfolds, it becomes clear that things aren't working out as planned, that it will cost too much or take too long, or that someone else will beat you to the punch. But instead of moving on to new opportunities, we continue to devote our time, energy, and money to doomed projects (or even doomed relationships), digging a deeper hole rather than trying to climb our way out of it.

Why? The most likely culprit is our overwhelming aversion to sunk costs - the resources that we've put into an endeavor that we can't get back out. We worry far too much about what we'll lose if we just move on, and not nearly enough about the costs of not moving on - more wasted time and effort, and more missed opportunities.

But thanks to recent research by Daniel Molden and Chin Ming Hui, there is a simple way to be sure you are making the best decisions when your endeavor goes awry: focus on what you have to gain , rather than what you have to lose .

Psychologists call this adopting a promotion focus . When Molden and Hui had participants think about their goals in terms of potential gains, they became more comfortable with accepting the losses they had to incur along the way. When they adopted a prevention focus , on the other hand, and thought about their goals in terms of what they could lose if they didn't succeed, they were much more sensitive to sunk costs.

If you make a deliberate effort to refocus yourself prior to making your decision, reflecting on what you have to gain by cutting your losses now, you'll find it much easier to make the right choice.

D. Molden & C. Hui (2010) Promoting de-escalation of commitment: A regulatory focus perspective on sunk costs. Psychological Science.

10) How to Fight With Your Spouse

Having a satisfying, healthy relationship with your partner doesn't mean never fighting - it means learning to fight well . But what is the best way for two people to cope with their anger , frustration, and hurt, without undermining their mutual happiness?

Thankfully, recent research by James McNulty and Michelle Russell provides the answer. The best way to deal with conflict in a marriage, it turns out, depends on how serious or severe the problem is. Did your spouse drink too much at the party last night, or is he drinking too much every night? Did she splurge a little too much on clothes last month, or are her spending habits edging you closer and closer to bankruptcy ? Did he invite his mother to dinner without discussing it with you first, or did he invite his mother to live with you without discussing it first? Little problems and big problems require very different approaches if you want to have a lasting, happy marriage.

When it comes to minor problems, direct fighting strategies - like placing blame on your spouse for their actions or expressing your anger - results in a loss of marital satisfaction over time. Flying off the handle when he forgets to pick up the dry cleaning yet again, or when she spends a little too much money on a pricey pair of shoes, is going to take its toll on your happiness in the long run. You really are better off letting the small stuff go.

In response to major problems, however, these same direct fighting strategies predict increased marital satisfaction! Expressing your feelings, blaming your partner and demanding that they change their ways will lead to greater happiness when the conflict in question is something significant - something that if left unresolved could ultimately tear your relationship apart.

Issues involving addiction , financial stability, infidelity , child-rearing, and whether or not you live with your mother-in-law need to be addressed, even if it gets a little ugly. Couples who battle it out over serious issues do a better job of tackling, and eventually resolving those issues, than those who swept big problems under the carpet.

J. McNulty & V.M. Russell (2010) When "negative" behaviors are positive: A contextual analysis of the long-term effects of problem-solving behaviors on changes in relationship satisfaction. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 98, 587-604.

Heidi Grant Halvorson, Ph.D. , is the Associate Director of the Motivation Science Center and Columbia Business School.

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Developmental psychology: Concern for others emerges during second year of life

Children exhibit empathic concern at about 18 months. In an LMU study, the facial expressions, gestures, or vocalizations of children at this age indicated they were emotionally affected by the distress of another person. From a psychological standpoint, this is an important developmental step. "To experience empathic concern, the child must be able to distinguish between the self and the other person," says Markus Paulus, Chair of Developmental Psychology and Educational Psychology at LMU. This self-concept emerges during the second year of life, as evidenced for instance by children recognizing themselves in the mirror.

Infants are moved by the feelings of others, such as fear or grief, from an early age. Developmental psychology interprets this emotional contagion as a first step toward empathic concern. "For empathic concern, you also have to be able to regulate the emotion and not be overwhelmed by it," explains Markus Paulus. Empathic concern requires not only affective resonance, but also cognitive understanding and the ability to take the perspective of the other person.

Empathic concern is acquired through social interactions

In the study, the researchers also investigated what role the behavior of caregivers plays in the ability of children to feel empathic concern for others. They discovered that the degree of parental sensitivity is key: The more sensitively mothers responded to the needs of their infants, the greater the capacity of the children was in their second year of life to show empathic concern for a stranger. Thus, empathic concern is socially acquired. "A child couldn't survive without sensitive caregivers who act with empathic concern. Children learn from them how to deal with negative emotions. As a result, they are subsequently able to apply these lessons themselves," says Markus Paulus. As such, the study shows that empathic concern is not innate, but develops in the context of social interactions.

For the further development of the child, empathic concern is critical for prosocial behavior. "Empathic concern helps us respond appropriately to the distress of others. It motivates us to care for them," says co-author Tamara Becher.

For the study, a team led by Markus Paulus and Tamara Becher invited the same infants and their mothers to behavioral experiments at LMU when the children were 6, 10, 14, and 18 months old. A total of 127 mother-child pairs were studied over a period of one-and-a-half years. The researchers recorded signs of empathic concern in the children in playful situations at four different points in time. In the experiment, the children observed how another person had a slight accident and simulated pain. Their response was additionally compared against their behavior when they saw another person laughing. The children were six months old at the time of their first visit and 18 months old at the time of their last one.

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Story Source:

Materials provided by Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München . Note: Content may be edited for style and length.

Journal Reference :

• Markus Paulus, Tamara Becher, Natalie Christner, Marina Kammermeier, Burkhard Gniewosz, Carolina Pletti. When do children begin to care for others? The ontogenetic growth of empathic concern across the first two years of life . Cognitive Development , 2024; 70: 101439 DOI: 10.1016/j.cogdev.2024.101439

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Strange & offbeat.

• Open access
• Published: 29 March 2024

Insomnia and creativity in Chinese adolescents: mediation through need for cognition

• Xiaoyang Ren 1 ,
• Min Shi 1 &

BMC Psychology volume  12 , Article number:  180 ( 2024 ) Cite this article

Metrics details

Creativity is an essential cognitive ability that plays a crucial role in advanced thinking. While previous research has demonstrated the impact of insomnia on cognitive function, its effects on creativity in Chinese adolescents remain unclear. This study explored the relationship between insomnia (specifically, daytime and nighttime disturbances) and creativity in adolescents. Additionally, it examined the potential mediating effect of the need for cognition on this relationship.

Questionnaires were administered to 302 adolescents to measure their creativity, need for cognition, and insomnia levels using the Williams Creative Tendencies Scale, Need for Cognition Scale, and Bergen Insomnia Scale, respectively. Regression analysis was conducted to examine the direct impact of insomnia on creativity. Furthermore, a mediation model was constructed to investigate the role of the need for cognition in mediating the relationship between insomnia and creativity.

The findings of the present study indicated that insomnia had a direct impact on the creativity of adolescents, demonstrating a time-of-day effect. Daytime disturbances were found to have a positive correlation with overall creativity and imagination, whereas no significant direct effect was found between nighttime disturbances and creativity. Further analysis revealed that insomnia, specifically daytime disturbances, might influence creativity by affecting the individual’s need for cognition. However, no similar indirect effects were observed for the relationship between nighttime disturbances and creativity.

Conclusions

Our findings indicate that adolescents might experience improved creativity as a result of daytime disruptions, and the level of need for cognition could play a crucial role in understanding the link between insomnia and creativity in adolescents.

Peer Review reports

Introduction

Insomnia is a condition characterized by an individual’s self-reported difficulties in sleeping [ 1 , 2 ]. It is characterized by symptoms such as taking a long time to fall asleep, waking up frequently during the night, experiencing prolonged periods of wakefulness during sleep, and frequent brief awakenings [ 3 ]. In recent years, issues like staying up late, not getting enough sleep, and struggling to fall asleep have become increasingly prevalent among adolescents [ 4 ]. The White Paper 2023 China Youth and Children’s Sleep Index, released by the China Sleep Research Association, reveals concerning statistics about the sleep patterns of junior high school students in China. According to the report, only 18.9% of these students manage to sleep for more than 8 h, while a staggering 59.4% sleep for less than 7 h. On average, these students only get 6.82 h of sleep, indicating that the majority of them do not meet the recommended amount of sleep. A study conducted in the Shandong Province of China explored the prevalence of sleep problems among adolescents. The findings revealed that 37.44% of adolescents suffered from insufficient sleep, while 26.89% reported experiencing poor sleep quality [ 5 ]. Another meta-analysis, which included 63 studies and a total of 430,422 Chinese adolescents, discovered that 104,802 adolescents experienced sleep disturbances. The overall prevalence of sleep problems was found to be 26%, with junior high school students having a detection rate of 20% [ 6 ]. As widely known, adolescents go through a crucial stage of psychological transformation. Issues such as sleep deprivation and sleep disorders appear to have a significant influence on their mental well-being, especially in terms of cognition and personality development [ 7 , 8 ].

Can tired minds generate creative ideas? Some researchers have found that the cognitive processes utilized before sleep by individuals with insomnia, such as rehearsing, planning, and problem-solving, are similar to the stages involved in creative thinking, such as preparation and incubation [ 9 , 10 ]. As a result, a hypothesis has emerged suggesting that individuals with disrupted sleep might exhibit greater creativity. In addition, it should be noted that disrupted sleep and the widely recognized consequences of sleep deprivation are symptoms of depression and anxiety [ 11 , 12 ], while depression and anxiety have also been associated with creativity [ 13 ]. This suggests that sleep issues could have been prevalent among individuals who are highly creative. However, it is important to consider that sleep problems have been shown to negatively affect cognitive function as well. For example, a study using fMRI have demonstrated that lack of sleep reduced the communication between various brain regions such as the amygdala, dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, dorsal anterior cingulate gyrus, and right inferior frontal gyrus. This weakened functional connectivity could result in a negative bias when it comes to encoding memories [ 14 ]. Additionally, research has found that sleep deprivation could also impact the activity of brain regions involved in fearful learning, namely the prefrontal cortex, hippocampus, and amygdala [ 15 ]. Since the activity of the aforementioned brain regions is crucial for individual creativity, some researchers have also suggested that problems such as sleep deprivation and sleep disorders may produce impairments in cognition, memory, etc., which in turn interfere with creativity [ 16 ].

It is noteworthy that only two studies have delved into the connection between insomnia and creativity until now. Firstly, researchers discovered a positive correlation between insomnia and creativity by comparing the prevalence of sleep disturbances in 30 creative children versus 30 control children. Notably, the highly creative children exhibited a higher incidence of sleep disturbances than the control group [ 17 ]. Subsequently, a recent study indicated a minor direct impact of a global insomnia factor on divergent thinking, implying time-of-day effects where nighttime sleep disturbances positively predicted divergent thinking more strongly than daytime disturbances [ 18 ]. These findings suggest that sleep disturbances may possess some beneficial predictive effects on creativity among children and adolescents. However, there could be disparities in the impact of sleep disturbances during the day and night. Despite this, the majority of existing studies have focused on the influence of insomnia on creative thinking, leaving a gap in research evidence regarding its effects on creative personality. It is established that insomnia is linked to personality traits [ 19 ]. Therefore, the primary objective of this study is to investigate the relationship between adolescents’ creativity (specifically creative personality) and insomnia. Building on the outcomes of previous studies, we hypothesized that insomnia would significantly and positively predict adolescents’ creativity (creative personality).

Although a tenuous link has been established between insomnia and creativity, it is postulated that additional variables might influence this relationship. Taking these observations into account, a crucial question arises: How does insomnia impact creativity? Since coming up with original and useful ideas requires several cognitively demanding processes [ 20 , 21 ], the need for cognition may also play an important role in creativity. The need for cognition refers to an individual’s tendency to engage in and derive pleasure from tasks that require cognitive effort [ 22 ]. Individuals with a strong need for cognition are more prone to innovate and have a deeper interest in addressing challenging problems. For instance, research suggested that those with a high cognitive need were more likely to generate ideas for ambiguous scenarios [ 23 ]. Furthermore, individuals with a strong need for cognition exhibited heightened creativity in problem-solving and possessed more pronounced creative personalities [ 24 , 25 ]. Therefore, the need for cognition might serve as a significant and positive predictor of creative personality [ 26 ]. In considering the role of insomnia in creativity, it is plausible that the need for cognition could act as a mediator, influencing the association between the two variables.

However, there was evidence that insomnia could impact individuals’ willingness to invest more time and effort when faced with complex tasks. The microanalytic model of insomnia highlighted hyperarousal as a key regulatory feature, which could distort perceptions of time and exacerbate the challenges associated with falling asleep and experiencing distress. As a result, the consequences of insomnia on the following day could include fatigue, mood disturbances such as irritability, cognitive impairments, and a reduced ability to engage in or enjoy mentally demanding tasks [ 27 ]. Furthermore, the maintained cognitive model of insomnia suggested that insomniacs tend to worry excessively about sleep and its consequences. This negative cognition leaded to emotional distress, and the resulting anxiety prompted individuals to hyperfocus on internal and external cues related to sleep-related threats. Consequently, this state of anxiety could lead to a lack of interest and motivation in solving complex problems, as well as crowding out the time needed for engaging in mentally challenging tasks [ 28 ]. Supported by neuroimaging and neurobiochemistry evidence, researchers have found that individuals with insomnia often exhibit impairments in various cognitive functions, including episodic memory, working memory, and certain aspects of executive functioning [ 7 ]. Given these findings, it is likely that insomnia can reduce an individual’s cognitive engagement and motivation to seek new knowledge, thereby suppressing the anticipated effect of insomnia on creativity. Therefore, the second objective of our study was to further investigate the psychological mechanisms that underlie the impact of insomnia on creativity. Drawing from the aforementioned theoretical and empirical evidence, we hypothesized that the need for cognition played a mediating role in the relationship between insomnia and creativity.

Taking into account that previous research primarily focused on young adults or children, who exhibited distinct sleep patterns compared to adolescents, the relationship between insomnia and the creativity of adolescents, particularly their creative personality, remained enigmatic. The objective of this study was to explore the impact of insomnia on adolescents’ creativity, specifically their creative personality, and to unravel the underlying mechanisms. Drawing from existing theoretical and empirical research, we postulated that: (1) insomnia, encompassing both daytime and nighttime disturbances, was associated with creativity in adolescents, and there might exist time-of-day effects (H1); and (2) the need for cognition might serve as a mediator between insomnia and creativity (H2).

Materials and methods

After a thorough literature review and consideration of previous research, the research questions and hypotheses were formulated in January 2023. Utilizing a cross-sectional research design, questionnaires were administered to a cohort of middle school students in Jinan, Shandong Province, in April of the same year. These questionnaires aimed to capture data on all the relevant research variables, including creativity, insomnia, and the need for cognition at the same time. Subsequently, the collected data was entered into a database and subjected to rigorous checking and analysis.

Participants and procedure

To ensure the validity and relevance of our study, we collaborated closely with a local school in the recruitment process. Initially, we liaised with the school’s head to disseminate recruitment details. Leveraging the assistance of class teachers, we carefully selected participants based on the following criteria: all participants were required to be native Chinese speakers with normal or corrected vision, exhibit no signs of mental or physical health issues, possess normal intellectual development, not encounter any reading difficulties, and not consume psychotropic drugs. Only students who expressed a willingness to participate and fulfilled the study’s criteria were ultimately chosen to participate in the testing process. This meticulous approach ensured that our sample population was representative and well-suited for the objectives of our research.

In this study, 318 junior high school students participated, of whom 302 were included in the primary analysis due to having complete datasets, yielding an effective participation rate of 94.97%. Participants’ ages ranged from 12 to 14, with an average of 12.97 years ( SD  = 0.49). Specifically, 41 were 12 years old, 229 were 13, and 32 were 14. 147 were females (48.7%) and 155 were males (51.3%). Regarding the parents’ educational backgrounds, the survey revealed that 31 fathers (10.3%) and 34 mothers (11.3%) held university degrees or higher qualifications. Notably, most parents had completed their education at the middle or high school level (70.2%). When it came to parental occupations, the survey found that the fathers’ top three professions were doctors (25.5%), self-employed individuals (11.6%), and drivers (8.3%). Meanwhile, for mothers, the most common occupations were self-employed (19.2%), salespeople (11.6%), and laborers (8.9%).

The Institutional Review Board of Shandong Normal University has granted approval for this study, ensuring that all measurements adhere strictly to the pertinent guidelines and regulations for psychological research. The group tests were conducted within the classroom setting, led by a psychology-major researcher as the primary tester. Initially, we secured the authorization and support of the school’s teaching department. Subsequently, we utilized the students’ self-study period to clarify the purpose of the research and underscore the principles of voluntariness, anonymity, and honesty. Ultimately, the participants were required to complete a psychological test within approximately 30 min, assessing various aspects such as creativity, need for cognition, insomnia, along with personal family information.

An adapted version of the Williams Creative Tendencies Scale (WCTS) was utilized to assess the creativity of the participants [ 29 ]. This scale was widely employed in numerous prior creativity studies and exhibited strong reliability [ 30 , 31 ]. The adapted version included 11 items to measure adventurousness, 14 items to measure curiosity, 13 items to measure imagination, and 12 items to measure challenge. Each item was rated on a Likert scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 3 (strongly agree). By compiling the total scores, we can effectively evaluate the creativity of the students. Notably, all the items demonstrated good reliability, with a Cronbach’s α value of 0.86.

• Need for cognition

The Need for Cognition Scale (NCS) [ 22 ] was employed in its shortened version to assess participants’ need for cognition. The 18-item Chinese version of the NCS was initially introduced [ 32 ] and subsequently validated as suitable for both adolescents and young adults in subsequent studies [ 33 ]. Participants were instructed to answer the questions based on their actual circumstances. Each item was rated using a Likert-type scale ranging from 1 (strongly opposed) to 5 (strongly agreed). The total score was calculated by summing up the responses to all 18 items, with higher scores indicating a stronger need for cognition. This measurement demonstrated good reliability in the current study, with a Cronbach’s α value of 0.76.

We utilized the Bergen Insomnia Scale (BIS) to assess insomnia among the participants [ 34 ]. The scale comprises six items, all aligned with the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV-TR) criteria for clinical insomnia. The validity of these items has been confirmed through subjective reports and polysomnographic data, encompassing sleep-stage progression, limb movement, and physiological measurements of respiration during controlled laboratory sleep. Three items focus on nighttime disturbances, such as “How many days a week did it take you over 30 minutes to fall asleep after switching off the lights in the past month?”; the other three items target daytime disturbances, like “How many days a week did you feel rested upon waking up in the past month?”. Participants were asked to rate their symptoms on a weekly basis using an eight-point scale ranging from 0 to 7. The total score for the first three items represents nighttime disturbances, while the last three items reflect daytime disturbances. This measurement demonstrated strong reliability for daytime disturbances (Cronbach’s α = 0.86), nighttime disturbances (Cronbach’s α = 0.62), and the overall insomnia score (Cronbach’s α = 0.80) in the Chinese population. According to previous literature, this scale demonstrated good reliability among the Chinese population [ 35 ].

Socioeconomic status (SES)

Recognizing the challenges in precisely measuring income, domestic researchers often turn to an alternative method: assessing a family’s socioeconomic status (SES) through a detailed analysis of their parents’ occupation and education level [ 36 ]. In the present study, we utilized the SES questionnaire to gather participants’ reports on their parents’ occupational and educational backgrounds [ 37 ]. These reports were then coded and graded, following established occupational classification standards, to ensure consistency and comparability across respondents. The occupational classification system employed in this study encompassed five distinct levels: (1) those engaged in temporary, unskilled, agricultural, or non-technical work; (2) self-employed individuals, manual laborers, and technicians; (3) general management and professional technical personnel, including clerks and employees in the commercial service industry; (4) middle-level professionals, managers, and technical personnel, as well as auxiliary professionals specializing in various fields of science, technology, and enterprise work; and (5) senior professional technicians, executives, and leading cadres exercising administrative functions in government, institutions, and social organizations, as well as high- and middle-level managers in large and medium-sized enterprises and private business owners. By utilizing this graded classification system, we aimed to capture a comprehensive representation of participants’ SES backgrounds, ensuring the validity and reliability of our findings.

Furthermore, the educational attainment of parents was categorized into distinct levels:“no schooling or primary education”, “junior middle school”, “high school or technical secondary school”, “junior college”, “university (undergraduate)”, and “graduate”. Participants were required to select the most appropriate category based on their parents’ educational qualifications, and each choice was assigned a numerical score ranging from 1 to 6 during the coding process.

Ultimately, the cumulative score served as an indicator of the family’s socioeconomic status, with a potential range spanning from 4 to 22. Notably, in this research endeavor, the SES scores for both mothers and fathers were computed separately, allowing for a nuanced understanding of each parent’s contribution to the overall socioeconomic profile of the family.

Data analysis

First, we employed the Pearson correlation to assess the relationships between the research variables in the present study. To explore the direct impact of insomnia (independent variables) on creativity (dependent variables), we resorted to multiple linear regression analysis. Specifically, gender, age, socioeconomic status of both parents, and insomnia total score (or daytime and nighttime disturbances) were simultaneously entered into the regression equation. Additionally, we utilized the mediation model to delve into the intricate relationships between insomnia, need for cognition, and creativity. To validate the mediation effects, we relied on the bootstrapping method. From the data, 5000 bootstrap samples were drawn, and 95% bootstrap confidence intervals (CI) were computed. For these statistical analyses, we employed SPSS 17.0 process SPSS macro PROCESS (model 4) ( http://www.afhayes.com ) [ 38 ]. This macro has been extensively used and developed for testing complex models incorporating mediating variables [ 39 ].

Common method deviation test

While the self-report method is a popular choice for data collection, it can potentially lead to common method variance (CMV) issues. To mitigate these concerns, we implemented various control measures to safeguard participants’ anonymity. Among these measures, we ensured that the collected data was strictly limited to scientific research purposes and employed reverse expressions for certain items [ 40 ]. Additionally, to enhance the study’s precision, we utilized the Harman single factor test to process the data. Specifically, we conducted a non-rotating principal component factor analysis on the aforementioned items. The results indicated that the first factor explained only 13.66% of the variation (falling below the 40% threshold). Consequently, this study did not exhibit significant common method variance issues in the collected data.

Descriptive statistics of study variables

Table  1 presents the means, standard deviations, bivariate correlations and gender differences among study variables. The independent samples t-test results revealed that females significantly scored higher than males on measures of insomnia, daytime disturbances, and imagination. Our findings further indicated a positive correlation between insomnia and daytime disturbances with imagination, whereas a negative correlation was observed with the need for cognition. Moreover, the need for cognition demonstrated positive associations with the creativity total score, adventure, curiosity, imagination, and challenge. Mother’s socioeconomic status (SES) exhibited a positive association with imagination. The data for all variables had no outliers and were within three standard deviations. The distributions of all variables approached normality, with skewness and kurtosis ranging from − 1 to 1.

Direct effect tests

The collinearity diagnosis revealed that the tolerance values for the variables of insomnia, daytime and nighttime disturbances, and need for cognition were greater than 0.2, ranging from 0.78 to 0.98, indicating the absence of significant collinearity issues.

The regression analysis results demonstrated that insomnia ( β  = 0.19, p  < 0.01) and daytime disturbances ( β  = 0.24, p  < 0.01) positively predicted imagination when controlling for gender, age, father’s SES, and mother’s SES. However, no significant direct effect of nighttime disturbances was observed on the creativity total score, adversity, curiosity, imagination, and challenge (Tables  2 and 3 ). Therefore, H1 was supported. Based on previous research, effect sizes of 0.10, 0.30, and 0.50 are considered small, medium, and large, respectively [ 18 , 41 ]. Consequently, insomnia ( β  = 0.19) and daytime disturbances ( β  = 0.24) exhibited small-to-medium positive effects on creativity, particularly in terms of imagination.

Indirect effect tests

The indirect effect of need for cognition between insomnia and creativity.

Firstly, the total effect of insomnia on creativity was tested, and it was demonstrated that the path coefficient was not significant. Subsequently, the mediating variable of cognition was added to the model to obtain the path type shown in Fig.  1 . The results showed that insomnia had a direct effect on creativity, and the need for cognition played an indirect role between insomnia and creativity (Table  4 ). The bootstrap test was utilized, and 5000 repeated samples were taken to test the mediating effect and estimate the confidence interval. The absence of 0 in the 95% confidence interval suggested that the indirect effect was significant (see Table  5 ). Therefore, H2 was supported. Similar results were found for imagination, while only indirect effects were found for adventure, curiosity, and challenge. According to the recently proposed mediation effect test method [ 42 ], the indirect effect of need for cognition on the relationship between insomnia and creativity was established, which manifested suppression effects. In other words, the inclusion of the need for cognition enhanced the relationship between insomnia and creativity.

Mediation analysis model testing relationships among insomnia, need for cognition (NC) and creativity

The indirect effect of need for cognition between daytime disturbances and creativity

Similar analysis processes were also conducted to investigate the relationship between daytime disturbances and creativity. Testing the total effect of daytime disturbances on creativity revealed that the path coefficient was not significant. The mediating variable, need for cognition, was then added to the model to obtain the path type shown in Fig.  2 . The results showed that daytime disturbances had a direct effect on creativity, and the need for cognition played an indirect role in the relationship between daytime disturbances and creativity (Table  6 ). Finally, the bootstrap test was employed, and 5000 replicated samples were taken to test the mediating effect and establish the confidence interval. The exclusion of 0 from the 95% confidence interval indicated a statistically significant indirect effect (see Table  7 ). Similar results were found for imagination, while for adventure, curiosity, and challenge, only indirect effects were found. Also, the inclusion of the need for cognition enhanced the relationship between daytime disturbances and creativity.

The indirect effect of need for cognition between nighttime disturbances and creativity

Although s imilar analysis processes were also conducted to examine the relationship between nighttime disturbances and creativity, no significant direct of nighttime disturbances or indirect effects of the need for cognition were found (see Supplementary Table S1 , Table S2 ).

Mediation analysis model testing relationships among daytime disturbances (DD), need for cognition (NC) and creativity

Insomnia and creativity in Chinese adolescents

The current study firstly examined the direct effect of insomnia (daytime disturbances, nighttime disturbances) on adolescents’ creativity. Based on our preliminary findings, insomnia was found to have a beneficial impact on the overall creativity score and imagination, aligning with prior research (H1 was supported). Further analysis showed that there indeed existed time-of-day effects: disturbances during the day had a significant effect on imagination, whereas the effect of disturbances during the night was not significant.

It’s worth nothing that the direct impact of insomnia on creativity was limited to imagination. Imagination is the ability to imagine things that have not yet happened and speculate intuitively, transcending the boundaries of the senses and reality [ 43 ]. It is the basis of all creative activities and a crucial part of culture life [ 44 ]. In a state of insomnia, individuals’ minds may be active, which may enhance individuals’ ability to visualize and increase their openness to new ideas and perspectives.

Moreover, our findings revealed a significant direct impact of daytime disturbances solely on imagination, with no comparable effect observed for nighttime disturbances. This seemed to contrast previous research conducted on young adults, indicating that ‘evening types’ - individuals who typically prefer staying up late and waking up late - tend to perform slightly better on certain measures of creativity [ 45 ]. However, it’s crucial to note that the sleep patterns of adolescents differ from those of young adults. Even if they stay up late, adolescents have less chance of waking up late. Consequently, nighttime disturbances may not be advantageous for them. Conversely, daytime disturbances resulting in fatigue and mood swings might lead to less stringent cognitive control, fostering opportunities for unconventional thinking. Hence, it becomes evident that the investigation of insomnia’s influence on creativity should take into account the time-of-day effects. Daytime disturbances appeared to positively predict creativity more strongly than nighttime disturbances in adolescents.

Mediation of need for cognition

Although the direct impact of insomnia on creativity was notable, the majority of the observed effects were of small-to-medium magnitude. Researchers postulated the existence of a third variable that could potentially mediate the relationship between sleep and creativity [ 46 ]. To delve deeper into the influence of insomnia on creativity, we investigated the intermediary role of the need for cognition. Our findings generally indicated that insomnia might exert its influence on creativity by modulating the need for cognition (H2 was supported). The introduction of need for cognition as a variable strengthened the predictive power of insomnia-related factors (such as daytime disturbances) on creative outcomes (like imagination). These observations suggests the emergence of a suppression effect, which refers to a scenario where a third variable attenuates the relationship between an independent variable (X) and a dependent variable (Y), even when the null hypothesis is true. In psychological research, the absence of a direct relationship between X and Y often poses a challenge. The suppression effect offered a valuable framework for addressing such scenarios and elucidating why significant relationships might not be immediately apparent [ 47 ]. Similarly, our results revealed that need for cognition acted as a suppressor, mitigating the effects of insomnia on creativity.

Despite the absence of a significant direct effect of insomnia, the need for cognition was supported as an indirect influence on adventure, curiosity, and challenge. Adventurousness, curiosity, and challenge-seeking all involve cognitive endeavors such as facing failure or criticism, inquiring into the root cause of problems, engaging in confusing situations, and making order out of chaos [ 43 ]. These creative personalities are strongly influenced by their need for cognition, and insomnia may influence them indirectly by altering their need for cognition.

Limitations

Although these findings offer valuable insights, it’s important to acknowledge several limitations. Firstly, the study employed a cross-sectional design, which assessed variables simultaneously, thus lacking evidence of a temporal link between insomnia and creativity. Longitudinal studies are needed to establish a definitive cause-and-effect relationship between these variables. Secondly, the current study primarily focused on creative personality, overlooking the impact of creative cognition. Given that insomnia is a small-to-medium predictor of divergent thinking [ 18 ], it’s crucial to investigate whether the need for cognition mediates this relationship, enhancing our understanding of the factors that truly influence insomnia’s predictive power over creativity. Finally, the findings of this study have not been replicated in other samples, limiting their generalizability. Future research should aim to replicate these results in diverse enrollment groups, particularly those experiencing severe insomnia, to gain a more comprehensive understanding of the phenomenon.

Despite the limitations described, the present study has two strengths. The primary strength is to first reveal the time-of-day effect associated with insomnia and adolescents’ creativity. These preliminary findings offer profound insights into the impact of sleep disturbances on adolescents’ creativity, thereby aiding in the development of accurate sleep concepts and promoting mental well-being. Secondly, insomnia was found to be more likely to influence creativity through affecting need for cognition. These revelations contribute to establishing scientific frameworks for understanding adolescents’ sleep patterns and suggest that the need for cognition is a crucial aspect in examining the link between insomnia and creativity. Notably, the suppression effect of the need for cognition offers an explanation for the tenuous association between insomnia and creativity, providing a theoretical foundation for fostering the emergence and development of creativity among adolescents with insomnia.

Data availability

Data is provided within the manuscript.

Abbreviations

Williams Creative Tendencies Scale

Need for Cognition Scale

Bergen Insomnia Scale

Socioeconomic Status

Common Method Variance

Father Socioeconomic Status

Mother Socioeconomic Status

Daytime Disturbances

Nighttime Disturbances

Need for Cognition

Standard Error

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