Naturalistic Observations

People tend to act differently when they know they are being observed. If researchers are interested in studying realistic phenomenon, they must strive to be as inconspicuous as possible when carrying out their research.

Specifically, they’ll employ naturalistic observation—a research method of unobtrusively watching behaviors in their natural setting—to ensure people are acting accurately, as they would normally.

For example, researchers may be interested in exploring how many times people actually pick up litter off the ground in the park compared to how often they complain about the clutter and don’t help. They could attach cameras to trees in a park—which the park-goers would soon forget about—and watch their behavior from a distance.

Because the participants are unaware of the researchers’ presence, they’ll behave as they would any other day. One person may complain how annoying it is that other people don’t pick up after themselves, but never throw away a piece of trash either.

However, if they saw any of the researchers observing them, they may alter their behavior—and pick up more trash—to impress others.

Thus, one of the major benefits of naturalistic observation is its high ecological validity—the extent to which the results from a study mirror what happens in everyday life.

Naturalistic observation research also has its drawbacks. For instance, because researchers are watching behavior “in the field,” they have no way of knowing when the behavior they want to occur—people entering the park and interacting with trash—will occur. As a result, this type of work can take time to carry out.

In addition, if researchers are expecting a certain result, they may do something, like accidentally move the cup out of sight. This action may then eliminate the option for some participants to even pick it up, and the researcher would be guilty of observer bias—unconsciously skewing the results to meet their predictions. To avoid this issue, researchers come up with strict criteria to categorize behaviors and calculate the inter-rater reliability—the degree of agreement in ratings between multiple observers.

Despite the limitations, naturalistic observations do allow researchers to draw rigorous conclusions from real-world situations that may otherwise go unnoticed.