Does my research have to meet all four goals?

• No; research is cumulative.

It’s very difficult for a single research project to meet all four goals of psychological research. Instead, researchers may focus on a single goal, or one or two goals. For example, when researchers investigate the causes of behavior, they may also be able to describe a particular aspect of behavior and identify a predictive relationship. Psychological research is cumulative. Our ability to describe, explain, predict, and change human behavior depends on the many research projects conducted by psychologists all over the world.