Research Methods Psychologists usually make a sharp distinction between correlational and experimental research. Your assigned reading provides examples of each. Most empirical psychologists consider experimental research as the favored way to gain scientific knowledge.
Many psychologists regard case studies as somehow less scientific than experimental research.
Yet, they are being increasingly used throughout psychology by people who are regarded as quite good scientists. ESP One of the problems with research on ESP and Psi generally is that the results tend to be unreliable. One claim of ESP researchers is that those people who tend to show the effects are different in personality and ways of processing information than those who do not show the effects. Last week when we discussed handwriting analysis I urged you to think about whether the underlying assumptions of the claims by graphologists made sense. One of the more elegant approaches to the study of genetic influences is studying monozygotic twins who have been raised in different homes with no contact since birth.