Research Methods and Statistics in Psychology

The third edition of Haslam and McGarty′s best-selling textbook, Research Methods and Statistics in Psychology, provides students with a highly readable and comprehensive introduction to conducting research in psychology. The book guides readers through the range of choices involved in design, analysis, and presentation and is supplemented by a range of practical learning features both inside the book and online. These draw on the authors′ extensive experience as frontline researchers and provide step-by-step guides to quantitative and qualitative methods and analyses. Written in an accessible and engaging style, this text encourages deep engagement with its subject matter and is designed to inspire students to feel passionate for the research process as a whole.

This third edition offers:

• Updated ‘Research Bites’ in every chapter: a space to step back from the text and reflect on the ways in which it relates both to issues in the world at large and to contemporary debates in psychology
• Updated coverage of experimental design, survey research and ethics
• More expansive coverage of qualitative methods
• A comprehensive guide to the process of conducting psychological research from the ground up ― covering multiple methodologies, experimental and survey design, data analysis, ethics, and report writing
• An extensive range of quantitative methods together with detailed step-by-step guides to running analyses using SPSS
• Online resources and videos to help reinforce learning and revision for instructors and students.

S Alexander Haslam (Alex Haslam) is Professor of Psychology and Australian Laureate Fellow at the University of Queensland. Together with colleagues, he has written and edited 15 books and over 300 research articles and chapters. His most recent books are The New Psychology of Leadership: Identity, Influence and Power (with Steve Reicher and Michael Platow, 2nd ed. 2020) and Social Psychology: Revisiting the Classic Studies (edited with Joanne Smith, 2nd ed. 2017). He is former Chief Editor of the European Journal of Social Psychology and former President of the Psychology Section of the British Science Association. He is a recipient of the European Association of Social Psychology’s Kurt Lewin Medal for research excellence, and the International Society of Political Psychology’s Nevitt Sanford Award for contributions to political psychology. He has also received awards for distinguished contributions to psychological science from both the British Psychology Society and the Australian Psychology Society. In 2022 he was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia “for significant service to higher education, particularly psychology, through research and mentoring”.


Craig McGarty is Professor of Psychology at Western Sydney University. He received his undergraduate training in psychology at the University of Adelaide and his PhD from Macquarie University in 1991 (where he was a tutor from 1985 until 1989). He spent 1990 as a lecturer in social psychology/social interaction at the University of Western Sydney and moved in 1991 to the Australian National University as a research associate. He was Reader and Head of the School of Psychology before moving to Murdoch University in Western Australia as the Director of the Centre for Social and Community Research and then Director of the Social Research Institute. He has worked on a wide range of topics in experimental social psychology, and his current research includes a social audit of the aspirations and solutions of a remote Indigenous community and studies of the reconciliation process in post-genocide Rwanda. His books include Stereotypes as Explanations (with Vincent Yzerbyt and Russell Spears, 2002) and Categorization and Social Psychology (1999).