Psychology Research ques

SETTING UP YOUR RESEARCH

Setting Up Your Research

Psych 665/Integrative Capstone: Psychology Past and Present

University Professor

May, 2017

Exercise 1.1: Discovering the Subject of your interest

Drug and substance use has traditionally been a difficult disease to control and eradicate from the society. While its effects are often far reaching, it often creeps up on individuals. Ultimately, it can rob individuals of the control of their thought process and in some cases their life once it becomes an addiction. With an addiction comes health issues as well as socio-economic consequences. Some individual put their family, relationships, and means of livelihood at risks. For example, a young man who may start taking drugs at a party to get in the mood ma y st art to tak e m ore q u a n ti t ie s o f t h e su bst ance to achieve a specific 'high' they want. Eventually, th ei r ability to be productive gradually fades,

For this reason, the study of how drug and substance abuse can be tamed and brought to the minimum is crucial in any given society. Given that substance abuse is a worldwide problem, any useful insight gathered through research, would be immensely beneficial to humanity. The findings and recommendations of this research would be disseminated all over the globe to help ills caused by this epi demic. All people need to be counseled on the evils of drug abuse and inevitable addiction.

Exercise 1.2 Understanding the personal viewpoint

Every societal problem has its root in certain social or intrapersonal circumstances. Substance abuse, like other challenges encountered by huma nit y, does not exist in isolation. In fact, almost all individuals have relatives, friends, or acquaintances that have been affected by substance abuse. Whether they are affected directly or indirectly, everyone can find a way to look at

substance abuse and drug addiction from the perspective of the person abusing the substance. This knowledge is vital in achieving the endeavor to minimize substance abu se and its effects.

While a general understanding of what factors lead to substance use, it is necessary to go an extra mile to find the specific reasons that cause each individual to abuse drugs. For example, some people get into the habit as a result of peer pressure, the need to fit in, others due to depression and others as deviant behavior. While these are broad classifications, individuals have different st ories (Horvath, Misra, Epner, & Cooper, 2015). To win the battle against substance, both preventive and restorative measures must be exercised. Each of these measures, need those in charge of t he activities to get down to the nuances of each case. This way, they will have a chance of success helping individuals.

Exercise 1.3 Selecting the focus of your study

To efficiently find the underlying causes of drug abuse, one needs to understand behavioral tendencies that help develop the idea. More importantly, is necessary to comprehend that habits develop over time. For this reason, the focus group of this study would consist of drug addicts who are either adults or young adults. Compared to teenagers, individuals in this group are more likely to have abused drugs over a significant period. Lengthy periods of time are necessary for the levels of accuracy the data collected. For instance, there is a lot one can study from a 40 years old drug addict than can be learned from a mere 20 year’s ol d addict. The body of the former and experiences will be more pronounced than tha t of the latter.

The other focus is that traditionally younger generations have learned to abuse drugs from older generations. Therefore, it would make sense that by attempting to diagnosing and helping the elder generations, the younger generations will benefit as well (Horvath, Misra, Epner, & Cooper, 2015). For the most part, this will be a preventive measure. That said, all groups, including the teenagers, are essential for this study. However, the adults are the primary focus group for this research.

Exercise 1.4: Developing your interest statement

Like illustrated above, substance abuse is not a habit that develops solely on its own. It requires contributing factors, which will push or pull an individual in that direction. For a long time, it has been observed that patterns of drug abuse occur in certain neighborhoods, families, and communities. It has also been found that people abuse drugs within groups of individuals who are roughly of the same age. These observations have lead sociologists and psychologist to theorize that environment and age have a bearing on the propensity of an individual that abuse drugs. However, the parallels go much deeper than environmental and age considerations. Familial settings, for example, influence on whether children born in a family of drug abuse, will abuse drugs or not. This point highlights the role of parenting by parents and close relatives. Cohesive families have very little tendencies of its members fall ing victims to drug abuse.

Exercise 1.5: Research and Null Hypothesis

The research topic will be to determine whether environment and age influence drug addiction. Research activities will be to observe the circumstances and environments in which individuals consume drugs. The researchers will seek to assess whether there are unique conditions where people who consume drugs limit themselves to, or do they consume drugs indiscriminately irrespective of their environments. They will also seek to determine if drug addiction can be pre vented. If it can, what are the most plausible remedies? Is their effectiveness dependent on age?

This research’s null hypothesis states that the tendency of alcohol abuse is dependent on environment factors and age. The alternative hypothesis will be that environment and age do not affect the probability of an individual’s abuse and subsequent addiction by alcohol.

References

Horvath, T., Misra, K., Epner, A., & Cooper, G. (2015). Psychological Causes of Addiction - Addictions. Amhc.org. Retrieved 1 May 2017, from http://www.amhc.org/1408-addictions/article/48345-psychological-causes-of-addiction