title: Much Pain, Little Gain? Paradigm-Specific Models and Methods in Experimental Psychology.
abstract: Paradigm-oriented research strategies in experimental psychology have strengths and limitations. On the one hand, experimental paradigms play a crucial epistemic and heuristic role in basic psychological research. On the other hand, empirical research is often limited to the observed effects in a certain paradigm, and theoretical models are frequently tied to the particular features of the given paradigm. A paradigm-driven research strategy therefore jeopardizes the pursuit of research questions and theoretical models that go beyond a specific paradigm. As one example of a more integrative approach, recent research on illusory and spurious correlations has attempted to overcome the limitations of paradigm-specific models in the context of biased contingency perception and social stereotyping. Last but not least, the use of statistical models for the analysis of elementary cognitive functions is a means toward a more integrative terminology and theoretical perspective across different experimental paradigms and research domains.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Mannheim, Mannheim, Germany t.meiser@uni-mannheim.de.
authors.forename: Thorsten
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Meiser
keywords: experimental psychology; illusory correlation; pseudo-contingency; research paradigm; spurious correlation