--Original published at Jayln's Perspective

Maximum Word Count for the Summary: 407

People tend to assume we are in control of our thoughts, but curious researchers wanted to know: do we actually have complete control over them? Researchers Bhangal, Merrick, Cho, and Morsella conducted two different experiments on college students from the University of San Francisco in order to test whether or not the students were able to control their thoughts. They hypothesized students would subconsciously utilize information they were blatantly told to ignore in order to influence how they answered test questions. Prior to the study, the researchers operationalized their variables by defining the various stimuli as the independent variable, and the test, which measured the information they could recall, as the dependent variable.

In the first experiment, 34 students were each exposed to various stimuli. Before they were shown these different colored objects, they were told to refrain from counting them. Despite the clear instructions from the researchers, when it came time for the test, it was evident about 90% of the students subconsciously counted the objects. In the second experiment, 40 different college students, who were randomly assigned to groups, were given the same test, but were told to either focus on the colors of the shapes or the number of objects which appeared on the screen. Even with instructions to only be conscious of one of these tasks, when tested, 40% of students could not only name the color, but could also recall the number of objects presented.

The results of the experiment supported the researcher’s hypothesis and lead them to further investigate why the students subconsciously retained information when told not to. The researchers concluded the student’s brains created “action sets,” which are used to make decisions concerning future situations. The two tasks caused 40% of the students to create two different action sets, so when asked to recall information, the students subconsciously utilized both pieces of information regardless of being told not to.

In both experiments, the students participated for course credit, which means there was no random sampling. Since there was no random sampling, the conclusions of the study can only be generalized to the specific population tested. The researchers did, however, use random assignment when grouping the participates, and the stimuli, known as the independent variable, was manipulated, thus the researcher’s methods allow for causal claims.

Reflection:

My main focus for this project was to not only summarize the researcher’s results effectively, but I also wanted to weave the five critical questions into the summary. I felt like it was necessary to provide answers as to whether or not the study answered the five critical questions. Even though the majority of the questions were answered in the full research study, the journalist who wrote the pop culture article omitted answers to all but one of the questions. Due to strict deadlines and the dense scientific findings in the full research study, I can only imagine how difficult it is for the journalist to address all of the five critical questions in his articles. This being said, I still think it is important to include whether or not the article could answer the five critical questions because it communicates the validity of an experiment. Although the journalist’s writing is of a higher caliber than mine, compared to the news article, I think I incorporated the use of the five critical questions more effectively.

I purposefully chose to leave out specific statistics, such as the p-value of the results, because although it provides great support for the researcher’s hypothesis, I think details like this are too specific for a summary of the study and its results. I also chose to leave out other complex details, such as the specific colors of the shapes, since this does not help communicate the overall findings of the study. Much like the journalist of the news article, I did not feel as if including very specific details would be appropriate in a condensed summary of the full experiment. For me, the most difficult aspect of this project was knowing I could not exceed 407 words in my summary. At first, I was overwhelmed because there were so many important details, and I had to decide which aspects were the most informative and necessary to include in my summary. Once I began writing, I discovered summarizing was not as much of a challenge as I thought it would be because I have already worked with the pop culture article and the research study in previous papers.

After critically reading a journalist’s article and a research team’s full study, I have learned how important it is to read with the scientific attitude. If one does not read media articles and research studies with humility, curiosity, and skepticism, then they can be quick to accept skewed psychological findings and data. Since we read a pop culture article, I was able to see how journalists wrongfully generalize research studies to “all people.” This made me more aware of biases in the media and how some journalists are willing to distort real scientific findings in order for their articles to receive more views. The full research study taught me how important it is to interact with complicated texts in order to understand the full purpose of the experiment. This project has taught me how essential the five critical questions are when reading over scientific research. I have also learned how to summarize lengthy research more effectively.

Bhangal, Sabrina et al. “Involuntary Entry into Consciousness from the Activation of Sets:           Object Counting and Color Naming” Frontiers in Psychology, vol. 9, 21 Jun. 2018,       doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01017

“You Don’t Have as Much Control Over Your Thoughts as You May Believe.” Study Find,         Study Finds, 2018, https://www.studyfinds.org/less-ability-control-own-thoughts-than-            believed/

https://www.studyfinds.org/less-ability-control-own-thoughts-than-believed/

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01017/full

--Original published at Taylor'sEtownCollegeBlog

A new study found that meditation has great benefits with decreasing physical responses to anger. Just one session of meditation has a great impact on the responses to anger. A little anger every now and then is normal, while anger everyday and constantly is not. Constant anger leads to raised heart rate, blood pressure, and faster breathing (Fennell et al. 2015).
In the study, it was found that as little as one session of meditation could decrease these physical responses to anger (Fennell et al. 2015). The study took 15 undergraduates from the University of Kansas’s psychology department who had not practiced meditation previously and 12 subjects from random yoga practices around the local area (Fennell et al. 2015). Both groups had their physiological responses recorded and measured by the same person.
Both groups were asked to recall a time in their life where they had experienced extreme anger. They were then asked to write down in extreme detail the event. After the event was recorded, their physiological responses were recorded and measured (Fennell et al. 2015). After the measurement, they were then given a survey asking about their level of anger (Fennell et al. 2015). Finally, the group that had not taken part in meditation was coached through a 20-minute session of meditation (Fennell et al. 2015). This same process was repeated then after the guided meditation.
It was found that after the 20-minute meditation session, there was a difference between the physiological response rates in the non-meditators (Fennell et al. 2015). Also, those who meditated before the study showed an overall lower change in physiological response to anger after the second exposure to anger (Fennell et al. 2015).
This study opens the door to the possible benefits of meditation on the affects to anger on the body but does not give all the answers. With this finding, more research can now be done to see the overall and complete benefit of meditation on the mind and body.
~Taylor

Bibliography
Fennell, Alexander B., et al. “A Single Session of Meditation Reduced Physiological Indices of
Anger in Both Experienced and Novice Meditators.” Consciousness and Cognition, 24
Nov. 2015.

Wei, Marlynn. New Study Shows Brief Meditation Can Reduce Anger. 4 February 2016. 22 September 2018. <https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/urban-survival/201602/new-study-shows-brief-meditation-can-reduce-anger&gt;.

 
Reflection:
While writing this research summary, I found it challenging to make the information come across as being interesting while also providing detail. I believe that this is a skill that ultimately causes detail and information to be left out of writing. Because I did not attempt to be interesting or to draw people’s attention, I was ultimately able to include more detail than the journalists can while writing. Luckily, there was not very much information that was not included in the original article that was included in the scholarly article, therefore, I was able to include all of the information from the scholarly article. I found it challenging to determine what information I ultimately wanted to include in the article. My perspective of journalism has ultimately changed in two different ways. On one hand, I respect journalists for making not so interesting topics more interesting. On the other hand, I find this irritating because there is information that is vital to getting all the answers that is often left out of articles.
If journalists were not interesting in their writing, then no one would read information. Because of their ability to write and entertain through words, information that is boring can be interpreted and understood while being enjoyed. On the other hand, because journalists now write to please and entertain, they often leave vital information out of their writing. This lack of details then gives readers false information/not the whole truth. When the readers do not have all the information, they are unable to make wise decisions that are based off of supported scientific information.

--Original published at Rachel Bickelman's PSY 105 Blog

ARTICLE SUMMARY

Talking to a stranger is generally uncomfortable, and full of awkwardness on both ends. While the general belief and consensus is talking with a stranger is awkward and not the best quality interaction, this belief may not be true. In a recent 2018 study, it was found that people are much harsher on themselves regarding their conversation performance with a stranger. 

The 2018 study, conducted by Erica Boothby, Gus Cooney, Gillian Sandstrom, and Margaret Clark, found when strangers conversed for the first time, conversationalists were not as judgmental as they were believed to be. Individuals were paired together to become conversation partners for a different lengths of time and after their conversation rated two aspects of the conversation. First, how much they liked their conversation partner and second, how much they thought the stranger liked them. 

In a majority of cases, individuals rated their partner with high regard but rated themselves with low likability. Participants believed they were less likable when in reality, they were more likable than they believed. This phenomena was dubbed “the liking gap” by Boothby et al. and was operationalized through the score given by participants on how likable they were and how likable their conversation partner was. One’s likability score was produced using a seven question scale that had a range of strongly disagree to strongly agree. The seven questions were: 1) “I generally liked the other participant,” 2) “I would be interested in  getting to know the other participant better,” 3) “If given the chance, I would like to interact with the other participant again,” 4) “I could see myself becoming friends with the other participant,” 5) “The other participant generally liked me,” 6) “The other participant would be interested in getting to know me better,” and finally 7) “The other could see himself/herself becoming friends with me.”

The initial results of a five minute conversation showed that the “liking gap” does appear in conversations and both participants rated their conversation partner as more likable than they thought. Both participants were experiencing the same phenomena, the “liking gap.” Boothby et al. showed that participants possessed lower perceived levels of likability. In reality, the participants’ actual likability showed the participants were more liked than they believed they were. 

In follow up studies, the “liking gap” persisted in five and forty-five minute conversations and was even seen to appear with college roommates over the course of nine months. Only after a significant amount of time, nearly a year, did the “liking gap” diminish according to Boothby et al. 

Boothby et al. also conducted workshops named “How to Talk to Strangers” where they tested their experiments in public. The results were the same in their research participants, college students, and general public. Individuals still thought their conversation performance was worst and believed themselves to be less likable than they were actually rated by their partners.

So why does the liking gap occur? Boothby et al. theorized that in general, people are very harsh and believe themselves to be bad regarding their ability to communicate. Boothby et al. offer three explanations. First, that people scrutinize their conversational mistakes and while they intend on getting better, they are critical of the way they spoke. Their conversation partners obviously do not have access to these criticizing self-thoughts and thus do not think their conversation partner made mistakes. Second, Boothby et al. observe that people held higher standards for themselves than others because they know how they can best perform. When people do not perform their best, for example tell a story perfectly, they indirectly believe this affects their likability. Individuals know the best version of their story and believe this is the most likable version of themselves, thus when their best self or story is not shown, the perceived rating of likability decreases. Lastly, Boothby et al. theorized the “liking gap” occurs because people overestimate how bad their behavior and mannerism were. Boothby et al. explain that individuals believe their unlikable qualities show through when in reality, their conversation partner does not know their self-conscious thoughts. 

Overall, the “liking gap” was observed to be a very real phenomena.

REFLECTION

Writing this last section, the media production project, allowed me to put myself in a writer’s position. While the process of writing a summary of the article was fairly easy, it was not a piece of cake. A true understanding was necessary to write about the article; this complete understanding necessitated careful reading and comprehension of the research study and its results. It was easier with the scholarly article I had as the math behind the results was fairly simple to comprehend. I could understand, however, how difficult this task could be if the statistical analysis was extremely mathematical and involved or required more information to understand the results. 

Similarly to the pop culture article I chose, I provided the reasoning of why Boothby et al. believed the “liking gap” exists. The language I used to write the summary was chosen so that younger and older readers could all read and comprehend the information.

Unlike the pop culture article, I named the researchers to give proper credit and included more detail about what the “liking gap” was giving an operationalized definition. I think it was important to include how the “liking gap” was measured because it provides a better understand of what it is and how it can be observed in public situations. 

I learned that when writing a pop culture article it is important to balance both the empirical information and entertainment factor. Writers obviously want to maintain the interest of their readers and thus including all the scientific and monotonous details can cause the audience to lose interest. I also learned the importance of writing with both accuracy and precision in order to capture the meaning of the article. 

--Original published at Bailey PSY 105 Blog

Bailey Carsten

27 November 2018

Psych 105

Max Word Count: 985

Over an intended period of two weeks, twenty-two college aged men were confined to the basement of Stanford University’s psychology department. The purpose of this was to measure the fundamental attribution error, or a person’s tendency to regard human behavior as being caused by the influence of situational conditions. The experiment, led by Dr. Phillip Zimbardo in the early 1970s, is bathed in controversy centered around the validity of and cruelty displayed within the experiment.

The dispositional hypothesis set for the experiment surrounded the issue of prison violence, and if the amount of violence seen between prisoners and guards in real-life prisons occurred because of personal issues and differences, or if it was a result of the predetermined roles each party was expected to fulfill. The only rules of the experiment was the lack of tolerance for the guards to display tendencies of involuntary homosexuality, racism, or to deliver physical beatings.

The experiment began with an ad in the newspaper seeking participants for the fourteen-day experiment in exchange for a daily compensation of fifteen dollars. The original 75 applicants were put through several background tests and interviews to determine whether or not they were ideal candidates. Zimbardo and his associates ruled out anyone who presented with behavioral, emotional, or physical issues. The process then moved on to a coin toss, which randomly assigned each participant to play the role of either a prisoner or a guard.

The prisoners were given identical boxy dress-like garments and were removed of all of their personal effects, including their underwear. The guards were also not allowed to refer the prisoners by their name, and they were known only by a three- or four-digit number for the extent of the experiment. The purpose of this was to emasculate the prisoners and strip them of their personal identity. The guards were given uniforms consistent with those in real prisons during the time, along with a nightstick and sunglasses. They were required to wear the sunglasses twenty-four/seven in order to mask their humanity and keep them from connecting to the prisoners. The prisoners were required to remain in the simulated prison

In order to fully immerse themselves into the experiment, neither party was allowed to reference the simulation as an experiment after it began. They were refused the right to believe that what was happening was anything other than reality. To make everything even more realistic, the prisoners were ‘arrested’ at their homes by real police officers and were brought to the facility in the back of marked police cars. As they entered the basement of the building, the participants were greeted with the sight of sparsely furnished prison cells and a small coat closet henceforth known as solitary confinement. The group of nine men assigned to be prisoners were to be watched over by three guards at a time and were not allowed to leave the building under any circumstance. The guards, however, switched off on three-man shifts and were allowed to go home at the end of their rotation.

The prisoners were only allowed three small and unappetizing meals per day and allowed limited time to be out of their cells and in the ‘yard.’ Both the prisoners and the guards were unaware they were of the extent to which they were being observed during the experiment, something that Zimbardo believes is an indisputable argument to validate his results.

Almost immediately after the experiment began, the guards especially began falling into a routine of aggression and superiority towards the prisoners. The guards performed nightly headcounts, which became increasing drawn out and humiliating, along with interfering severely with the prisoner’s sleep schedule. The guards would awaken the prisoners at all hours of the night to perform these counts, as well as various humiliating and impossible physical tasks such as hundreds of jumping jacks and dozens of push-ups with prison guards seated on their backs.

The prisoners quickly began experiencing physical and mental breakdowns, displaying undeniable signs of extreme emotional depression, crying, rage, and acute anxiety. In reaction to their trying emotional state, the prisoners ultimately resorting to barricading themselves inside their cells, going on hunger strikes, and making various escape attempts. Despite the obvious distress displayed by the prisoners, neither the guards nor Zimbardo and his team were willing to stop the experiment or provide the prisoners any relief.

The most influential conclusion Zimbardo gleaned from this research was simply proof of how damaging our prison systems are to the guards and prisoners contained within them. Even without the racism, forced homosexuality and sexual assault, physical beatings, and threats to the life of the prisoners commonly seen in prison systems, the mental state of the simulation prisoners still devolved and deteriorated severely enough to bring the experiment to a close after only six days.

After less than a week of the experiment, fellow psychologist and Zimbardo’s then girlfriend, Christian Maslach, visited the site of the experiment with the intention of participating as a research assistant. Maslach became understandably concerned with what she saw and accused Zimbardo of cruelty towards the study subjects. This intervention seemed to open Zimbardo’s eyes to what his experiment had become and prompted him to instantly shut down the experiment and release his participants.

Though perceived as cruel and unnecessary, Zimbardo continues to stand by his project and express his insistence that his experiment was exactly that, an experiment; and not a mere simulation as it is claimed to be by so many critics. The main issue found within the experiment is that there is no dependent variable, or something that is changed to test a specific outcome or adjustment in behavior. Without one, the experiment loses credit and only served to give Zimbardo, his associates, and the participants a first-hand view into prison life.

Reflection

I did not find it overly difficult to summarize the whole research article into my word count (985 words max). When just reducing the journal down to its bare bones and only taking into account what exactly happened within Stanford’s psychology department basement that summer, it is fairly easy to render it into a certain word count. I did however have to leave out some information for the purpose of keeping my writing more concise and interesting. One of the things I left out is how one of the guards, without knowing he was under surveillance, was continuously patrolling the hallway in which the prison cells. He did this not to play into the experiment, not because he knew he was being watched and wanted to do his job and get paid, but simply because he believed it was his job to keep his prisoners contained and in line. Though this is only one small part of information I had to cut out, I would have liked to include it to point out how extreme of lengths the guards went to in order to conform to their designated roles. The main issue I had when writing my version of the article was to try not to simply regurgitate the information I had written for the summary sections of the Pop Culture and Scholarly Article Critiques, as well as the extra credit assignment, as they were on the same topic for me. I definitely have new respect for journalists after completing this project. I have realized how difficult it is for them to write an unbiased account of someone else’s research without plagiarizing from the original article, while still making it interesting and making people want to read their article over anyone else’s.

Leithead, A. (2011, August 17). Stanford prison experiment continues to shock.                                 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-14564182

--Original published at Garrettscollegeblog

Over the history of weight-loss drugs, significant weight loss has always been followed by cardiovascular problems. Lorcaserin, a major component to the drug Belviq, significantly contributes to weight loss. The cardiovascular outcomes remained unknown until further research on the drug tested the effects on overweight people with cardiovascular disease or cardiovascular risk factors.

The TIMI Study Group planned to conduct the experiment by creating two groups out of the selected participants. One group set to receive the drug Belviq, while the other group took a placebo. With a plan to apply the results to a multinational audience, the researchers randomly selected 12,000 participants from 437 sites in eight different countries. In order for eligibility for selection to exist, the participant must bear a BMI of 27 at the lowest while also at risk for many cardiovascular problems.

From the eight countries, TIMI selected 12,000 eligible participants, which then underwent assignment. At a 1:1 ratio, participants were randomly assigned to either the group that would receive Belviq, or to the group that would receive a placebo. Both groups then received a weight-loss and diet plan from the study group and encouragement to participate in the plan.

After 1 year of taking the drug, 38.7% of those taking Belviq lost more than 5% of their body weight in comparison to the 17.4% in the placebo group. When the weight loss increases to 10%, people in the Belviq group to complete this task tripled the amount in the placebo group (15% compared to 5%).

It is seen that Belviq significantly aids in weight loss, but the drug’s performance at the cardiovascular stage shined as well. Participants consuming the placebo actually suffered from a very small percentage more major cardiovascular events (6.2%) than those consuming the Belviq (6.1%). Although performing in both the cardiovascular and weight-loss aspects, the drug did cause some side effects. Some participants did experience dizziness, nausea, headaches, fatigue, and diarrhea, and in few cases to the extent of causing discontinuation from taking the drug.

Reflection:

While writing the summary the five critical questions stayed in my mind throughout. The one that stuck out the most was, “How did they operationalize their variables?” as this acted as a major criticism from the original pop culture article. The original article failed to mention how participants became eligible for this experiment. Although it mentioned that the participants must be at risk for cardiovascular disease, it failed to bring up what deemed participants obese or overweight. I made sure to mention these details, as it is important to know the characteristics of people participating. The other critical questions that stood out to me were participant selection and group assignment as these pertain to whether this was a true experiment and if these results could be generalized to more than those participating in the experiment.

A major similarity between the article and my summary existed in the results section. Both the article and my summary chose to elicit the information easily understood by the average reader, while still presenting enough information to get across the point. Another similarity existed in the slight bias towards Belviq throughout the article. I remember briefly critiquing the bias in the original article, but when reading my summary, realized that I showed the same bias. The differences between the two summaries subsisted in the writing style. The journalist much more effectively exposed the information while intriguing the audience to learn more. The journalist also possessed other interviews and sources to contribute to their article.

I definitely learned from this project as a whole the difficulty journalists face. The ability to take such advanced material in the scholarly articles and present it, in an entertaining way, to the public is an extremely strenuous act.

Bohula, Erin A, et al. “Cardiovascular Safety of Lorcaserin in Overweight or Obese Patients.” The New England Journal of Medicine, 26 Aug. 2018, pp. 1–11., doi:10.1056/NEJMoa1808721.

Preidt, Robert. “Diet Drug Belviq Is First Shown Not to Hurt Heart.” WebMD, WebMD, 27 Aug. 2018, https://www.webmd.com/diet/obesity/news/20180827/diet_drug-belviq-is-first-shown-not-to-hurt-heart#2

--Original published at Site Title

Summary

After a longitudinal study, researchers have found the word “fat” holds a lot of power and negative consequences. This little word can do as much as increase the risk of young girls becoming obese later in life.

In this study, researchers followed 1213 girls that identified as black and 1166 girls that identified as white over the course of about a decade, starting at age 10 and ending at age 19. These girls were weighed at the start of the study (10) and then again at the end (19). Upon the start of the study, 58% of the participants were previously told they were “fat” by someone close to them such as a parent, sibling, friend, or teacher. The shocking results came after measuring the girls’ body mass indexes (BMI) at the end of the 10 years. The girls who were told they were “fat” before the study were found to be 1.66 times more likely to be obese at age 19 compared to those who were not told they were “fat”.

Although the parents/guardians of the participants shared information with the researchers about their income and educational background that could have contributed to the findings, the researchers found that the biggest contributor to obesity came from the girls being told they were “fat” by a family member versus and non-family member. These findings help back up a previous study done at Yale University in 2007 that found the stigmatization of overweight children can have negative consequences on both their physical and mental health. Even though there is no cause and effect between stigmatization and obesity, and at times it may not seem like it , young children do listen to what you say and will take it to heart.

http://www.msnbc.com/craig-melvin/calling-girls-fat-can-affect-their-weight

Hunger JM, Tomiyama AJ. Weight Labeling and ObesityA Longitudinal Study of Girls         Aged   10 to 19 Years. JAMA Pediatr. 2014;168(6):579–580. doi:10.1001/jamapediatrics.2014.122

Reflection

The process of writing my own research summary was not too hard, but I think for the most part I just got lucky with the article that I chose. The news article and scholarly article are fairly short and lack a lot major detail therefore my summary could not be that extensive, however if the circumstances were flipped I think I might have struggled. Writing is not one of my strong suits and I have a lot of respect for journalists that do that for a living. Specifically I think it would be extra challenging to be a journalist who writes about research studies and experiments because they not only have to read those at times, lengthy scholarly articles, but they also have to understand what they are reading and interpret the results. That is a much more difficult task compared to us, where we were able to have access to a previously written news article in addition to the scholarly article Although my article was short I did leave out some information that I felt was rather irrelevant to the main idea of the research. Specifically, I left out the information about the states that the girls were from. I felt the need to leave this out because this was not mentioned in the scholarly article so that triggered me to believe it is either not important to the results of the research, or the writer of the news article did not have their facts straight. I also left out the little snippet from the original news article that states no data exists for adolescent boys on this topic, mostly because for me that only raised more questions and I think it is just better off if the reader is not introduced to excess information that could potentially distract from the main point. In addition, from my summary the five critical questions to look out for when reading research are not really addressed, but they were not fully answered in either of the original articles and made it difficult for myself to implement them in my writing.

--Original published at Caroline's Blog

Can swiping right on tinder lead to unhappiness rather than satisfaction? This might just be the case according to Shena S. Iyengar of Columbia University and Mark L. Lepper of Stanford University. These researchers gathered evidence from three different studies to decide whether or not a higher quantity of options leads to higher satisfaction.

All three studies build up to why having more options might not be as beneficial as having fewer options. First, the researchers visited a high-end grocery store and set up a display of jams to sample and potentially sell. Random people who were given six option to choose from versus people who were given thirty options to choose from were more likely to purchase the jam they sample. The next study was built off of this by looking at the quality in essays by college students who were given limited options versus a vast amount of options. The higher quality essays were from students given lesser options. Finally, the last study used results from the previous two studies. This one focused on decision making with greater or lesser varieties of options. Some of the people were given an extensive amount of Godiva chocolate whereas others had less to choose from. This study proved that it was harder to come to a decision when they had more options in front of them.

Tinder could be compared to an endless supply of Godiva chocolate- are you really making the best decision to swipe right on one individual while there are possibly millions of better options in front of you? Based on the previous research, Tinder may not be the key to your love-life issues. Getting to know a select few individuals, preferably in real life, may end up creating more satisfaction for you knowing that you those other one million individuals in your Tinder feed are not worth your time.

For my summary, I chose to include the general ideas of the studies so that someone reading this would not have to look back into the article to find the results of this study and have a hard time comprehending the advanced language in the research article. I did not mention how the variables were operationalized in depth, however I discussed how they were able to come to the results for each study. I also chose to leave out statistical information that would not have been helpful for the reader. The selection of participants (randomized) was discussed for the first study, and I mentioned who the participants were for the other two studies. The assignment of groups was not mentioned in my article nor in the original news article. The conclusions were generalized to the correct population in the first and last study that I mentioned. At the end, causal claims are able to be made because there is a clear independent variable and randomized groups for each of the studies.

In the original news article, the critical questions were not very evident, and my version did a better job at discussing them. The author did not define the independent or dependent variables, so they were not able to be operationalized, it does not discuss how the participants were chosen, if the participants were randomly selected and put into groups, they generalized the conclusion to the whole population, and it did not allow us to make causal claims. Overall, I tried to incorporate more factual information from the research article, although it was not statistical information, instead of providing personal anecdotes.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/psych-illogical/201809/swiping-right-unhappy

https://faculty.washington.edu/jdb/345/345%20Articles/Iyengar%20%26%20Lepper%20(2000).pdf

Citations

Heiss, Rebecca S. “Swiping Right Into Unhappy.” Psychology Today, Sussex Publishers, 8 Sept. 2018, http://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/psych-illogical/201809/swiping-right-unhappy.

Iyengar, Sheena & Lepper, Mark. (2001). When Choice is Demotivating: Can One Desire Too Much of a Good Thing?. Journal of personality and social psychology. 79. 995-1006. 10.1037/0022-3514.79.6.995.

--Original published at HuntersCollegeBlog

Summary: 

When taking a picture with a phone, it is often seen as a simple task. Click a button, and you are done. Do those pictures save in our heads like they do on the phone? The term offloading refers to taking the picture, and rather than remembering it in our minds, we rely on our phone to do the remembering for us. This can cause the photo-taking-impairment effect, which means one cannot remember the object that they took a photo of, only objects they look at and see in real life. Each experiment conducted by Soares and Storm shows just how impairing it is to the memory to take a picture on a phone.

Coincidentally, people tend to take photos on their phones to later remember that snapshot, but according to the studies conducted in this research, the complete opposite can actually happen. Along with the offloading hypothesis is the attentional-disengagement hypothesis, which is where people may actually be more focused on taking the picture, rather than the object they’re photographing, thus making the ability to encode the memory even less. When asked, according to Mols, Broekhuijsen, van den Hoven, Markopoulos and Eggen (2015), people said that when they took pictures of their experiences rather than use something else to capture that experience, they felt more disconnected. When Henkel (2014) conducted a study that this current study is furthering, he found people who took photographs of the objects versus just looking at them remembered the photographed objects less when asked about them later. He suggested that this was possibly due to the offloading theory, which is further tested in the current study.

Within the two studies, both hypotheses were tested. Each person was able to take a picture of the photo on the computer screen, observe them, or take a picture and then delete it soon after. When testing the offloading hypothesis, it was thought the photo-taking impairment would be lessened if participants were not relying on the photos being saved for later. When testing the attentional-disengagement hypothesis, assuming the photos to be saved or not would cause a memory impairment after taking the picture.

In the first experiment, participants used Snapchat to avoid offloading, since the pictures would be sent somewhere instantly. As well as using Snapchat, some participants observed the photos on the screen, while others took a picture of the screen with a regular camera app. With this hypothesis of offloading, it was predicted that people using Snapchat would remember the photos better than those using the camera app. After the participants observed/took pictures of the photos on the screen, they were given a test to see how well they remembered the pictures on the screen, specifically the details. Each participant had fifteen seconds to observe the photo, and those who had to take pictures would take the picture (those using Snapchat would take the picture and then send it to the designated contact), and then use the remaining time left of those fifteen seconds to look at the photos on the computer screen. The test was then completed at the end of the experiment to see how well each trial could point out certain details in the photos on the computer. Participants who only observed the photos scored higher on the test than those who had to take pictures. Surprisingly, people who took pictures with the camera app answered more questions correctly than those who used Snapchat. The photo-taking impairment was present in both those who used the camera app and Snapchat, but it was larger with those who used Snapchat rather than the camera app.

In experiment two, the experimenters gave those taking pictures a full fifteen seconds after the photo was taken to ensure they had the same amount of time to encode the pictures as those who were only observing. A Delete condition was replaced with the Snapchat condition. Instead of using Snapchat, participants took a picture with the camera app and then deleted it immediately. This would show that memory was still suffering, even after having a full fifteen seconds to observe the photo on the screen once participants took a picture of it. Other than the changes mentioned above, the same procedure took place. After participants in the Camera group and Delete group took the photos on the camera, they were given an extra fifteen seconds to view the photos. The test was also taken at the end of the experiment. These results found that those who only observed the photos still answered more questions correctly than those who were taking pictures, but the photo-impairment was still high with those who deleted the photos from the phone. The Camera and Delete conditions were not significantly different, as each group did almost the same on the test.

The offloading hypothesis did not match with the results that were obtained, since every group had a kind of photo-taking impairment. Despite having the extra fifteen seconds, memory impairments were still seen, which could show that it is not distraction that is causing the photo-taking effect, but the entire experience failing to be encoded properly

Reflection: 

With this summary, I chose to put in more background information of the study, and why these researchers decided to do the study, because I felt that without knowing that prior knowledge, the study was hard to follow, and it could have become a bit confusing at times. I also chose to include the study that inspired this study, because in the article, it referred back to Henkel’s study, and what these researchers decided to do the same/differently from Henkel’s study. I chose not to include some information at the ending of the research article, because it went into a lot of information about why the study did not work, and the interpretations of the study, because the researchers went into a lot of detail on that, and it became confusing to interpret and understand. I also chose not to include whether it answered the five critical questions, because there were a few that were not present in the research article, and the study cannot be applied to specific populations. The researchers also pointed out a lot of flaws that led me to believe that this study was not completely perfected yet, so the five critical questions could not be justly answered. I feel that my summary covered the majority of the information given in the research article, whereas the news article missed a few important things. My summary was also a lot shorter than the news article, but I feel it still covered the necessary information. The news article was only able to cover a few of the five critical questions, while I chose not to include what critical questions the research article answered, in my summary. Based on each of the three assignments, I learned that it is sometimes difficult for journalists to write about psychology research, because of how in depth and difficult it is to interpret at some points.  For the popular article critique, it was hard for me to fully understand what the study was about, because not everything was discussed in full detail, but when I was writing the critique, it was hard for me to determine what should and what should not have gone into the critique. The same goes for the scholarly critique article-some of the information was hard to interpret, which made it harder for me to figure out how to write it and elaborate on it. The media project helped me to see how journalists pick and choose what information to put into their articles. It also showed me how to determine which information has to be included, and which can be left out.

Marczyk, Jesse. (2018, June 11).  “Getting Off Your Phone: Benefits? Psychology Today.

Retrieved from https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/pop-psych/201806/getting-your-phone-benefits

Soares, J. S., & Storm, B. C. (2018). Forget in a flash: A further investigation of the photo-taking-impairment effect. Journal of Applied Research in Memory and Cognition, 7, 154-160

Retrieved from https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2211368117301687?via%3Dihub

--Original published at Sydney’s Side

A study conducted in England discovered being involved in sibling bullying could put a child two to three times more at risk to developing mental disorders. Almost 7,000 people were randomly selected to participate in the eighteen-year-long study. The researchers claim it is the first study of its kind.

Sibling bullying is more than just sibling rivalry, it is considered “repeated negative outcomes” between siblings. Children who participate in sibling bullying are three times as likely to develop psychological disorders. The study also found, children who were victims of sibling bullying as well as peer bullying were four times as likely to develop a disorder. The more frequent the bullying attacks, the higher the risk of a disorder.

At twelve years old, the participants went through a series of interviews to determine if they were a bully, victim, or neither. 364 of the participants were classified as a pure victim, 236 as a pure bully, and 384 were classified as a mixture of the two- called a bully-victim. At eighteen-years old, the participants took a test to determine if they showed any symptoms of a psychological disorder. Of the participants with a bullying status, 55 of them were found to have a psychological disorder. Less than 1% of the non-involved participants were found to develop a disorder.

It is not just the victims who are at risk. The study discovered perpetrators were just as likely as the victims to develop a psychotic disorder. The children who were victimized were also found to have additional negative consequences. They included lower IQ scores, trouble expressing their emotions, and were more likely to be bullied by peers than those who were not victims of sibling bullying. Previous studies have found a link between schizophrenia and social defeat, which many of the victims feel. Both victims and bullies are also more likely to develop negative schemas of the world around them.

It is important for parents to take initiative to prevent the negative side effects of sibling bullying, before it is too late. The study recommends parents should intervene and look to professionals to help prevent psychological harm. More research on this topic is necessary to make any definitive conclusions, but this study is a start.

Reflection:

It was somewhat difficult to summarize the research study in the 430 words used in the pop culture article. It was easy making the article below the word count because the word limitation was known as the summary was being written. While writing the article, there was not specific details of the information included. The difficulty came from deciding how much information to put into the summary. The original study was difficult to understand and to put it into a short article was challenging. There was a great deal of information left out such as the specific tests used, statistical analysis, strengths and limitations of the experiment, as well as any confounding variables. This information was left out because readers of an online news article would not be interested in this information. The information used in the summary included the location of the study and the categories of participants. Then it briefly explains how the data was collected and then the results were given. The five critical questions are briefly mentioned but not clearly stated. Often times they must be inferred because it was not necessary to put into the article.

Before writing the media production article, I believed journalists were too biased and left out too many details. Many of my original critiques of the pop culture article are due to the short length of it. For a journalist to accurately summarize an eighteen-year study within a short article, would be nearly impossible. Journalists often get backlash for not giving the entire story, but they have a limited word count in order to get the reader’s attention. It should be the job of the reader to find additional information to get the entire story because any article will have bias in it. The point of online articles is to have more people read them to get more money. If the article was long and described the study in full detail, not many people would want to read it.

The article does not clearly answer all five critical questions, because there is not enough space to explain all of them. The average reader would not recognize how the study operationalized their variables, but it is mentioned in the media production article. It defines how sibling bullying was defined, but does not go into further detail. Another critical question is how they selected their participants. The media production article states they were randomly selected, but they could choose not to participate. The next question asks how the study assigned their participants to groups, which can be inferred. It is unethical to assign participants to be a bully or a victim of bullying between sibling, therefore the study did not randomly assign their participants to groups. The fourth question wants to know if the experiment allows for causal claims. This is not stated in the article but can also be inferred. In order to have causal claims, the experiment must have random selection and randomly assign participants to groups, which it does not. Finally, the last critical questions asks if the study is generalized to the correct population. This is not mentioned in the media production article because the readers would not be interested in this information.

The pop culture article had many similarities and differences between the media production summary. They were similar in the way they both only provided the most basic information. The articles were both limited in the amount of words they could use, so they only provide a glimpse into the study. But they are different in the way they present the information. The pop culture article was written by a journalist getting paid to write an article to bring more readers in.  But the media production article was written only to summarize the information in the original study. They are also different because the pop culture article used the input of researchers involved in the study. The media production article did not have access to these individuals.

https://www.studyfinds.org/children-bullied-siblings-more-likely-devleop-psychotic-disorders/

file:///Users/sydneyleete/Downloads/For%20Sydney%20(1).pdf

--Original published at Rachelsblog

Researchers,Wijnand A. P. van Tilburg , Constantine Sedikides, and Tim Wildschut asked a very critical and controversial question that psychologists have been exploring: Does weather affect nostalgia? Nostalgia is a feeling of missing the past or a loved one that one receives from many different factors. Researchers wanted to know if weather affected moods and brought back feelings from past experiences. Therefore, multiple experiments were conducted.

Four experiments were done to help answer the question. In the first study, 75 participants were recruited, 51 women 24 men. The participants were assigned to listen to different recordings of weather. The recordings included, thunder, wind, rain, and a control group which was an empty parking lot with no type of bad weather. The recordings were 2-minutes and after listening to them, the participants were then asked to record their feelings of nostalgia. The results showed that after the participants listened to all 4 recordings, they had feelings of nostalgia after hearing the thunder, wind, and rain. The conclusions were generalized to all the participants, which is fair because there was a mix of genders. If just one gender was used and the results were generalized to all of society, this would be false because the other gender was not tested.

In the second study, 133 undergraduates from the University of Southampton were used. 117 women and 16 men were used. The participants were all assigned to keep an online diary for 10 days about how the weather affected their feelings of nostalgia and distress. The results of this show that rain and wind had a higher perceived affection of nostalgia and distress to the participants, thunder was not that big of a factor. Once again, the conclusions were generalized to the correct population because both genders were used, so there was no bias towards one gender compared to another.

In study 3, 323 participants were used. 186 women and 137 men were used. The participants were split into two groups randomly. One group was to listen to either the control or wind recording again. While they listened to the recording they were asked to think of a past experience that brought them feelings of nostalgia. The other group was to listen to the recordings and their task was to count backwards from 350 in intervals of 7. The results showed that those who focused on an event that caused them nostalgia had  more nostalgia after listening to the recording compared to prior to listening to them. The other group had less of an affect on their feelings of nostalgia because they were not focused on it. They were too busy trying to count backwards that they could not feel nostalgic and the weather did not affect them because they were not affected by it.

In the last study, 202 participants were used, 100 men and 100 women. The participants were randomly assigned to one of the four recordings in study 1 again. As they listened to them, they were asked questions about the recordings and social connectedness was then a factor that was included. The researchers asked what the feelings of nostalgia made them feel connected to, whether it be loved ones, friends, or a past time. Wind was perceived to give the most nostalgic feelings and social connectedness to the participants.  Thunder evoked more nostalgia than the rain.

In conclusion, it was confirmed that for most people, at least the participants used, that weather did evoke feelings of nostalgia. All the experiments were related to each other and supported each other. The data supports that weather does affect feelings of nostalgia.

Reflection:

After reading through the pop culture and scholarly research article, I learned that when it comes to reading psychology articles, it is important to pick one that is very detailed and is able to be fully understood. In my summary, I made sure to include as much detail as I could so the reader could see where I answered the five critical questions. The five critical questions are to be addressed because if they aren’t, there could be confusion on what is going on in the experiment. It is important for the article to be detailed, but not too much detail that it confuses the reader. The scholarly article also used big psychological words that were confusing to me as a reader, so in that case, I made sure to not include them or only include them if they were hard to leave out. I had to leave out some parts of the article that were not important, like the charts of data provided. It would have made my article longer than the page limit. The charts also were hard to understand as a reader, and personally, confused me when I was reading it. I am better at reading the data written out than in numerical values in a chart. The article also included an abstract all about nostalgia, which was helpful but a little unnecessary. I included the definition of nostalgia because I thought that was important for readers to understand, but the extra information in the scholarly article, I left out. I feel as if the scholarly article included a lot of helpful data but a little too much at times and I was lost reading it at times. The pop culture article was straight and to the point, but did not answer the five critical questions, which is essential to the article.

I found a middle point of both articles. I left out some of the extra details of the scholarly article that were not needed, but added to the pop culture article by answering all five questions. We critique journalists for leaving some things out, but after typing this, I can see why they do that sometimes. As learned in class, it is important to be able to understand the experiment to the fullest and be able to answer the five critical questions. I included a small summary of the materials used, procedure, and results of the experiment so the reader had enough detail to understand the article but was not overwhelmed and confused.

“Adverse Weather Evokes Nostalgia.” Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, 14 Mar. 2018, journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0146167218756030.

Haddock, Geoff. “Can Bad Weather Make Us Feel Nostalgic?” Psychology Today, Sussex Publishers, 7 Sept. 2018, http://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/attitude-check/201809/can-bad-weather-make-us-feel-nostalgic-0.