1. Most psychology students take a research methods course because it is required. However, if you let this be your only or final answer, it is bound to lead to disgruntlement. Being coerced into anything triggers resistance. If you ask further you may come up with another, deeper, and more satisfying answer. Why do you want a psychology major? Why do you want a graduate degree in psychology? Why do you want a better job in psychology? At some point, most people get to an answer with some intrinsic motivation. If your ultimate goal is service, take your research class knowing that it is a step toward being able to serve better. If your ultimate goal is to help create new understanding, hold your research lass as an important step along the way. Keeping these kinds of underlying motivations in mind will help you in your course.

2. Curiosity, fun, play, "love affair with the world." This is as good a reason as any to study and conduct research.

3. Service, to improve conditions & reduce suffering, to find new ways of solving problems

4. Communication

A. Research provides a careful, detailed summary of information, facilitating communication between people. It attempts to reduce bias in the information it presents.

B. Science can provide a relatively neutral language, circumventing other boundaries such as politics.

C. Science can provide a kind of translation between language domains. For instance, meditation practice was first accepted into the mainstream medical community because of research showing its physiological effects. This research did not "prove" anything that was not known for thousands of years to experienced meditators. However, it did make this knowledge available to scientists and physicians who had otherwise discounted meditation.

5. Vindication. Confirming claims that (1) this program works or (2) this proposition, hypothesis, or theory is useful. This is what makes science an alternative to propaganda, opinion, or bias. This includes replicating and corroborating previous findings.

A. accountability, documentation (evaluation). Providing evidence that a program has met its objectives or is cost effective.

B. theory testing (research). Providng evidence in favor of a theory or hypothesis.

6. Personal and professional development

Learning and doing research can help develop the following skills and capacities:

• observation, becoming sensitive to information
• objectivity, becoming sensitive to personal bias
• analysis, discriminating component parts
• synthesis, perceiving relationships and wholes
• creativity
• the ability to take alternate points of view
• communication, including writing and speaking
• patience
• humility (for instance, when your hypotheses are not supported by the data)

These capacities can serve you well beyond doing psychological research. Consider how they might be useful to you in your career, relationships, and your inner life. In this way, science moves from being only a tool for discovering or creating knowledge about the world to being a tool for personal growth, liberation, and transformation, as well as being a tool for compassionate and effective service to the world and one's people.

To be fair and honest, we should also look at the drawbacks, dangers, or limitations of studying research methods. Research methods can be used as a tool of oppression. Research methods can promote a mechanistic and desacralized view of the world (as Maslow pointed out). Of course, none of these are intrinsic to psychological research, but they should be kept in mind. What other dangers or limitations of psychological research can you identify?