An interview is a face-to-face meeting in which the interviewer asks an individual a series of standardized questions. Usually the subject's responses are recorded on tape or written down. The advantage of an interview over a questionnaire is that it allows the interviewer to ask additional questions when appropriate. If the interviewer notes an exaggerated response, instead of recording a simple answer she may decide to ask other related questions, to explore more fully an area that seems to be important to the subject. Although interviews have the advantage of providing detailed information on specific subjects, they also have disadvantages: they take a considerable amount of time and provide a relatively small amount of data. The following list contains typical questions that might be asked in an interview. Typically the questions are open-ended—that is, they allow respondents to answer in almost any way they choose.
Describe yourself briefly.
What do you like most about yourself?
What do you like least about yourself?
Have you ever been in trouble?
What was your favorite childhood story?
What would "heaven on earth" be for you?
If by magic you could change anything about yourself, what would you change?
Naturalistic Observation
Probably the simplest way to find out about behavior is to observe it. However, people who are told they are going to be observed tend to become self-conscious md tend to alter their behavior. A psychologist using the technique of naturalistic observation tries to observe how people and animals behave in their natural settings, the way birdwatchers watch birds—at a distance, to minimize the effects of their presence on the behavior observed. In fact many scientists spend a large part of their lives observing the behavior of animals at a distance. Jane van Lawick-Goodall spent years in the forests of East Africa observing the behavior of chimps. Slowly, almost imperceptibly, she became a part of the chimps' environment, observing their behavior and taking notes on everything they did. Eventually she was approached by the chimps. In her naturalistic observation studies, Goodall did not try to interact with the animals, nor did she try to affect died behavior. Her purpose was to gain information about the way these animals behaved naturally.
Goodall's work is neither unique nor exotic. She had to accommodate a bureaucracy that initially would not allow her into the chimpanzee reserve without a European escort (she took her mother); she had to overcome the suspicions of the natives; she suffered from malaria; she had to wait nearly four years to get close enough to her subjects to observe them unobtrusively. She could not be a factor in their behavior.
Good research is often lonely, time consuming, detailed, slow, and expensive. (The National Geographic Society has been a major sponsor of Goodall's projects.) The work is hardly glamorous. Seldom does a researcher get wealthy. But work such as Goodall's enables researchers in fields such as zoology, ethology, anthropology, ecology, psychiatry, and psychology to build upon her findings to gain new insights in their fields. This cross-pollination of data results in new theories, among them theories on how people behave. Thanks to Jane Goodall, we know more about ourselves.
Naturalistic observers have to take their data where and how they find them.
They cannot manipulate the environment, because they might alter the behavior they are observing. Naturalistic observation is an important way to collect data.
Its strength is that the data collected are largely free of contamination by the observation situation. Its weakness is that the behavior the psychologist might an examine is not always exhibited: sometimes, for example, the animals or not how mating behavior, or groups of people decide not to migrate. Because variables cannot be manipulated, the data from naturalistic observation, like the data from questionnaires and interviews, does not permit cause-and-effect statements.
Case Studies
Perhaps the most exhaustive method of collecting data about a behavior is the case study. This method has its roots in other disciplines. When a patient walks a physician's office, one of the first things the physician typically does is ask for a medical history. Likewise, a psychologist taking a case history tries to find out as much as possible about a person's life. He asks about the history of symptoms and about current problems. Like a physician, he might then diagnose the person's problems and suggest a course of treatment.
A case study is an important research tool; it describes in detail a specific person's responses to the world and can suggest a method of treatment. No two people have exactly the same problems or cope with them in precisely the same way. One person may become jittery and nervous in front of other people; another may laugh or drink excessively. Still, case studies allow researchers to see common behavior patterns or symptoms among people with similar emotional problems.
A case history usually discusses a client's complaints, background, treatment, and other complicating factors. The strength of a case history is that the information it provides is unusually complete. However, that information describes only one individual and his or her unique problem. A researcher cannot generalize from one individual to an entire population. The behavior of one person may be others', it may be unique. Psychologists must be cautious even when generalizing from a large number of case histories.
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