-Psychologists study one individual in great depth in the hope of revealing things true of us all.

- A detailed description of a particular individual being studied or treated, which may be used to formulate broader research hypotheses

-More commonly used by clinicians; occasionally used by researchers

They can sometimes mislead us because an individual may be atypical; Unrepresentative information can lead to mistaken judgments and false conclusions; can only learn about one individual, so you don’t have a broad data

Surveys to Study Behavior

Advantage

ADVANTAGE- Involves more than one person, and therefore, more accurate result. Also, questions about people’s attitudes, experiences or opinions get put to the public. 

*Survey

-Questionnaires and interviews that ask people directly about their experiences, attitudes, or opinions. Looks at many cases in less depth.

-Should have a representative sample

-A group of subjects, selected form the population for study, which matches the population on important characteristics such as age and sex

-Popular polls and surveys use volunteers rather than representative samples

-Leads to volunteer bias or the belief that volunteers may differ from those who did not volunteer