PRD Therapy Psychoacoustic Disarticulation Reprocessing

Question: Discuss about thePRD Therapy for Psychoacoustic Disarticulation Reprocessing. Answer: 1st Part The six principles of scientific thinking are used in defining something as scientific or unscientific (James, 2012). In the case study, the researcher focuses on phobia and its reduction in human beings. They argue that fear is the cause of negative thoughts on individuals. In their opinion their newly invented therapy, Psychoacoustic Disarticulation Reprocessing can offer remedy to this situation. The central claim here is that fear is the cause of negative thoughts and reduction of fear in individuals can reduce negative thoughts. Replicability in research refers the probability of research to produce similar results in studies of the same type. It means that a research conducted involving some individuals today can produce similar results if the exact study is repeated at a later date ( Dienes , 2008). For a research to be termed as scientific therefore, its findings have to be replicable provided that the research remains just the same. The study analyzed in this case had a sample population of Caucasian adults between the ages of 18 and 35.The doctor and his colleagues repeated this study twice and got similar findings. Based on the fact that the findings were replicable in two independent but similar studies the research can be said to be reliable. However, reliability of these findings will depend on the angle from which we look at the study. If the focus was only on the members of the Caucasian family, the findings can be said to be reliable because the sampled population of two hundred and fifty adults provided similar results on two occasions. However, while the sample can be said to have been representative because it involved a large age margin, it was only focused on members of the Caucasian group. This means that its reliability outside this group of people cannot be established because the ease of influencing people may vary based on their attributes such as race. One of the warning signs related to pseudo-scientific claims is Overreliance on anecdotes. This emphasizes on the importance of statements to be supported by data gathered from a study instead of opinions from individuals because a single persons observation may be prejudiced or lack the merit that is required to represent the whole group. The study analyzed was conducted by doctor Zoosk and a number of other individuals .This means that then opinions were not based on the opinions of a single individual. Similarly the findings were based on a two studies involving 250 adults. This signifies the fact that the study was based on evidence and not mere imaginations or statements from the doctor and his colleagues. 2nd Part The core business of any research is to come up with findings that are reliable and which satisfy the objective of the research. This makes important every aspect of the research including the methods used and other factors considered in the research. There are different aspects of research methods that are used they include, representativeness of the population sample, use of a control group, ethical considerations among others. Control group in research refers to the group in an experiment that is not subjected to any form of treatment and which is used as the standard for assessing the change brought about by the treatment .Comparing the control group with the treated group enables a researcher to easily note the changes that are brought about by the treatment. A control group therefore forms an important component of research if the researcher intends to come up with reliable research findings. Based on the case study, researchers have concluded that PRD therapy can reduce anxiety levels in people and make them more happy and positive. However these findings could have been more reliable if there was a control group that could have been used in the study. The control group would have helped in establishing the actual changes without any assumptions, making the research more reliable. Additionally, representativeness in a population sample is very important. This helps in establishing uniformity in the research findings. On the other hand if the sample used in research is not representative of the wider group the research findings will be referred as unreliable. The research sample used in this study involved 250 Caucasian Adults between the ages of 18 and 35. The findings were therefore limited to only this definition of people. This can therefore be referred to as a biased sample .The danger of using a biased sample is that the findings arrived at might not be representative of people outside this group. The researchers emphasis on only members of the Caucasian may have affected the findings .The findings were also only applicable to people within the ages of 18 and 35 .The people belonging to other age brackets were left out as well .The researchers would have made their research more reliable if they used a sample that was representative enough. References James, W. (2012). The principles of psychology: Vol. 1. New York: Dover Publications. Martin, R. A. (2007). The psychology of humor: An integrative approach. Burlington, MA: Elsevier Academic Press. Higgins, E. T., Kruglanski, A. W. (2007). Social psychology: Handbook of basic principles. New York [u.a.: Guilford Press. Kaplan, R. M., Saccuzzo, D. P. (2009). Psychological testing: Principles, applications, and issues. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Cengage Learning. Dienes, Z. (2008). Understanding psychology as a science: An introduction to scientific and statistical inference. Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan. Lerner, R. M., Steinberg, L. D. (2004). Handbook of adolescent psychology. Hoboken, N.J: John Wiley Sons.