--Original published at Emily's college blog

The Mythbusters episode that I decided to watch was “Are women Better Than Men at Reading Emotions?” In this short clip, the Mythbusters put this question to the test by taking five different pictures of themselves, showing a different emotion. In these photos, the men and women participants would only see the Mythbuster’s eyes and they would only have a selected amount of time to guess the emotion that each Mythbuster was trying to portray. After the experiment, Mythbusters declared the combined score from all the women was a 10.6 and the combined score from all the men was a 9.6. This was not a significant difference, but it was a big enough difference that they decided that women could read emotions better than men.

Although this was a fun and interesting experiment, there were some questionable methods used to design it. One being that the Mythbuster’s facial expressions in the photos may not be what they would actually express if they felt those emotions. Since there is no specific expression for a certain emotion, the Mythbusters were only showing how an emotion is supposed to look. An emotion is something everyone can feel but it is not something everyone expresses the same way. Also, it can be hard to read an emotion when only looking at an unfocused picture of someone’s eyes. Two pictures were so misleading that no one had actually gotten the expression correct. Instead, everyone had guessed the same answers of what they actually saw. I also noticed that during one point of the experiment, two of the Mythbusters had different scores for one of the participants. This one, simple mistake can damage the total data for the results.

Some ideas to perhaps fix these methods would be to show the Mythbusters different videos, pictures, or stories that would force their true expression to be expressed. This way, they would actually be feeling and showing their own expression of the emotion. They also could have used a professional camera in good lighting instead of an old, dark photo-booth. Then, the photos would be clear, focused, and of exceptional quality. I think since the Mythbusters would now be expressing their actual emotions, it would not be as misleading as before to show pictures of only the eyes. Especially since the camera quality would be much better, so the participants would have a better chance of trying to guess the emotion as well. Lastly, the Mythbusters should pay closer attention to the answers so that there is no confusion on the participant’s score.

The Mythbusters did, however, have some ideal methods to their design. They kept good timing on the participants and noted that women were answering faster than most of the men. They also made sure to have a decent number of participants in order to balance the playing field of men vs. women.

--Original published at NataliesCollegeBlog

After watching the video by Mythbusters titled Laws of Attraction – Gentlemen prefer blondes? it left me surprised that there is no significant difference among hair color and attractivness. Throughout my childhood it has been a myth that blondes always have more fun and get more men swarming around them. As a brunette, seeing this study immediately made me curious to find the answer.

In the beginning of the clip, the researchers stated their question of interest on if men thought blondes were more attractive; however, they lacked a hypothesis in the study. This is a problem because you can not conduct a study until you have a specific hypothesis you will be testing. Having the hypothesis there is no difference between attractiveness and hair color is an easy solution to create a testable hypothesis. The men conducting the study had some clever ways of testing their question by having all of the nine women hide their natural hair color by putting a wig on during their dates. In the study, three women would have a blonde wig, three women would have a brunette wig, and three women would have a red wig. Nine men would come in and go on speed dates with each women to see which ones they found more attractive. The researchers conducting the study with three trials and have nine different men for each. The only problem so far with this study is the researchers did not specify how these men were found. The problem with this could be these men were not randomly selected. For example, there could be a possible male in the study knows his girlfriend is in the experiment could sign up to pick her as the most attractive every time. This would alter the data and lead to biased results. A way to improve their experiment would be demonstrate how the men for this study were randomly selected. This would also help with biased answers.

Another way I would change the experiment would be how the scoring system worked. In the study, after talking to their date for three minutes the men would rate the date on attractiveness and likability. After thinking about how talking to someone can change your initial attraction to someone, it made me think the study could be preformed differently. This could be solved by having all of the men rate the women on their attractiveness before talking to them for three minutes, and then rating the women on their likability after the three minutes. This course of action could possibly lead to other possible questions to be tested and also another way the researchers could eliminate personality as a bias.

The Mythbusters team did a good job at analyzing the data and showed there was no significant evidence between each hair color and attractiveness. When evaluating the whole experiment and basing it off the scientific method, seeking scientific review, publish, and replications was not used in this test. Since the study was not scientifically reviewed means this study could have been coincidental. A way to fix this is to have it reviewed and replicated in other places to see if this test is accurate among the whole male population.

A Case Example

After reading about Miguel I was able to notice the different theoretical approaches about his life lately. Psychodynamic is about how the unconscious mind and how emotional responses are changed by childhood experiences. Miguel’s id, ego and super-ego make up his personality. Since Miguel is a perfectionist, his id self causes the tiniest mistakes to make him lash out and doubt his self and causing him to become irritated. It could be possible his perfectionist habits also relate to his parents putting pressure on him as well. Behavioral psychology is when someone responds and learns differently based on their given situation. It is apparent that looking at a behavioral state, Miguel is struggling with his coursework and this is fueling Miguel to lash out on his roommate. The humanistic approach is strength based and to focus on personal growth and seeing yourself as a whole person. He could try to understand everyone makes mistakes and not having everything perfect should not ruin the rest of his day. He could see the good in his work and realize all of the work he accomplished before making a tiny mistake was good quality work and he should be proud. The cognitive approach in Miguel’s situation is on how he is struggling to think and focus on his assignments and it is making it hard for him to process the information. In his mind, he could be the type of student that thinks he is only a good student if he receives all A’s. This could be the root to why he starts to doubt all of his ability when he makes mistakes in his assignments. In neuroscience it becomes a similar approach that he is having hard time expressing how he feels and focusing due to the lack of sleep he is getting every night. From a cultural approach it could be the idea of having everything perfect is something that he was raised around and was passed on down from his parents and grandparents. The idea that he doubts his abilities could relate to his family being tough about everything being perfect in his house. This could make Miguel act like this with his schoolwork. Education could also be something that is highly valued in his family and could make him feel pressured to be the best at everything in school.

--Original published at Jess Principe's Blog

I selected the Mythbuster’s video “Are Women Better at Reading Emotions than Men?” The Mythbuster crew conducted their experiment by having their cast show different emotions while their pictures were taken, however, only their eyes were viewable. The question the crew imposed was “Can women read emotions more accurately and faster than men can?” The results showed women scored an overall average of 10.6, while the men scored an overall average of 9.6. Their results represent a difference in between the two groups, but not by a large margin. The crew claims their results are believable because women have a larger language and emotional memory center in their brains than men.

The method of taking photos of just the eyes of the people selected in their experiment, does make it harder to identify the emotion being shown without the observer being able to see the person’s body language. However, this method fails to account for people who do not show emotions through facial expressions. In addition, the crew members made their emotions very dramatic, which doesn’t allow the test to see if women can still pick up on emotions stronger than men if the eyes of the person in the images were not them attempting to show their emotions so strongly. An improvement to this method could be to do various images of the emotions like images of the entire person or their whole face only to show body language and the expression of their mouths which can also reveal emotions. The photos could be taken in a more natural setting instead of right in front of a camera because this could make it harder to identify the emotion, which would make the test harder to see if their is a stronger difference in the test scores between the men and women after that alteration to the experiment.

Another factor to consider was time. The Mythbuster’s crew said that women scored faster than the men, however they did not officially time them people taking the test, they only scored. An improvement to this method could be to time how long it takes the person observing the pictures to answer what emotion they believe the picture shows, and then take that data into accountability as well when comparing the men vs. the women.

Lastly, the pictures of the emotions sometimes were confusing to the test takers to determine what emotion the person in the image could have been attempting to reveal. For example, the “confused” emotion picture was sometimes misinterpreted for being the emotion “sexy”. An improvement to this method could be to give the people taking the test a sheet with the listed emotion options for them to choose from. This could make it easier and more accurate to track how the men and women answer what emotion they felt the picture represented.

--Original published at Kaity Takes on Psychology

The popular TV series “MythBusters” is known for designing tests to determine whether or not a myth can be plausible or debunked. The hypothesis for this particular experiment was whether or not drunkenness has a role in people’s perception of the attractiveness of others. The group had three participants undergoing the transition between sober, tipsy, and drunk. Their objective was to rate photos of strangers on a scale from one to ten, and later analyze the scores of each participant.

The three participants in the experiment (being the independent variables, as they altered their own perceptions through the consumption of alcohol) found themselves rating their samples as more attractive while drunk. Though the concept of beer goggles was decided to be plausible, there were several lurking variables in the experiment. There were only three participants, resulting in a small pool of data to analyze. Provided with a larger sample of participants, the experiment could have yielded varying results. Likewise, the selection of photos the participants rated consisted of different people each time. Though the folks in the photos were said to be aligned with the attractiveness of the people in the previous pictures, there still remains the issue of personal preference from the participants. The female participant even asks if the people in the second batch of photos are less attractive than the first. There is not a clear-cut solution to this issue, unless the photos used in the experiment were the same each time they rated them

There are several other issues with way the experiment is designed. The participants were all white and cisgendered, and likely have similar cultural values regarding looks. If “MythBusters” had implemented diversity among the participants in this experiment, the results would have provided a more fair set of data and removed the element of undercoverage. Additionally, by including two data sets from heterosexual males and one from a straight female, the experiment lacks perspective from the LGBT community. The “beer goggles” were not tested to see if they improve the attractiveness of all people, as they only comment on the appearance of their opposite gender. If they included photos of both genders, they could assess that as well.

Using a one to ten rating system on the photos allowed the three participants to use their own judgement while measuring the attractiveness of the person in the photo. As a result, each person had their own set scale on standards of beauty from the start. There was not a solid definition of attractiveness defined prior to the experiment and thus forced the majority of the process to be based on opinion. Walking into the experiment knowing the objective could have influenced them to rate the final group higher than the previous batches.

Another crucial flaw in the experiment is each person metabolizes and reacts to alcohol differently. It was clear that the female participant was more drunk than her male counterparts by the third round of rating photos, as she did not remember her scores from the previous times. The results were relatively unclear, yet the participant with the best data sample to prove the concept of beer goggles automatically claimed that the myth was plausible. The other two did not seem sold on the idea, but still went along with the first person’s analysis of the data.

In conclusion, the experiment was poorly designed, despite a reasonable hypothesis. Confirming the existence of beer goggles requires a larger pool of data, repeatable results, and the use of the same photos each time. They could have spaced the test out over the course of three sessions instead of doing it consecutively to ensure the results were fair. This experiment was created based upon response bias, and will naturally yield faulty data. There was a clear increase in the three samples by the last test, yet the experiment relied too heavily on opinion for the testing to be a fair assessment of all inebriated people.

--Original published at Jill Distler's Psychology Blog

Does weaving through traffic actually get you to your destination faster?

In this short clip where MythBusters’ Grant, Kari, and Tory put their driving skills to the test during rush hour, many elements of the scientific method were put to the test. Immediately in the segment of the episode, they began to discuss their topic of interest: traffic’s affect on arriving at a destination. Tory described his method of sticking to one lane, and Grant suggested that he feels changing lanes is a more efficient way to drive on populated roads. Although they did not officially state a hypothesis, they chose to test their question using two identical cars, a destination, and a time of day when they knew the route to their desired location would be crowded: morning rush hour. I believe that their experiment had been thoughtfully planned, but I think there were a few flaws in the original experiment. In the introduction, Grant specifically said he changes lanes while driving “all the time”, but in the execution, he was the passenger to Kari’s driving, even though she seemed to be the outlier in the conversation. I also think that if Kari was given a passenger, then Tory should also have had one, because the experiment was not completed in the same fashion. There were also only two vehicles, doubling that number would have produced more liable results because the road conditions wouldn’t be the same on another day, and only using two cars couldn’t have possibly produced enough data. Overall the experiment has always been one of my most favorite to be executed by MythBusters, but from the clip provided there is sadly, no way of telling how often the experiment was altered to develop a theory about whether or not changing lanes in traffic is a more efficient way of driving, but I will happily stick to my ways of staying in one lane while driving.