ABSTRACT
It should be clear from the preceding chapter that research methods can be understood as means of minimizing the probability that observers will distort the facts. But what is the nature of the facts that psychologists seek? And what need researchers observe to obtain these facts? The point is made in this chapter that what have to be observed are things called variables, and that the facts sought are relationships between variables. Psychological questions are more readily answered when they are restated as questions about the relationships between variables.
