--Original published at Chey's Blog

Researchers have been studying the differences between cultures and the effects that those cultures have on the brain. It was hypothesized that in Western cultures there is more of an independent self-identification and in Asian cultures there is an interdependent self-identification. Researchers Ying Zhu, Li Zhang, Jin Fan, and Shihui Han put their skills together to come to a conclusion for this hypothesis.

Tests were performed on paid volunteers. Thirteen volunteers were men and women from a Chinese college and the other thirteen were men and women from a Western college. The researchers used fMRIs to measure brain activity of the participants. The participants were asked to judge words shown to them on a screen and describe whether they were accurate descriptions of themselves, their mothers, or others. An example of a word would be the names of the presidents of both countries. They were also asked to judge the font of the words. The results were that the medical prefrontal cortex (MPFC) and the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) activated more with self than other identification for both parties. However, the MPFC was activated with both mother and self in Chinese subjects and just self in Western subjects. This shows that the MPFC of Chinese individuals represents both the self and the mother, while the MPFC of Western individuals exclusively represents self.

By studying both of these cultures it found that there are varying cultural differences in brain activity with self representation. Asian cultures have more of a group identification while Western cultures have a self identification. Because of the dynamic of Asian cultures there is no mental separation of identity. It is normal in Asian cultures for families to live together continuously. This is almost unheard of in most Western families. It is normal for children to move out when eighteen and not move back in. This helps to forge a self identification in Western individuals.

Pop Culture: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/between-cultures/201701/how-culture-wires-our-brains

Scholarly: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/ynimgNeuroImage 34 (2007) 1310–1316

http://www.paper.edu.cn

Reflection:

I chose to include how the research was conducted and how participants were elected. I did not explicitly answer the five critical questions because I believe that if you are reading a summary of information those questions should be able to be answered in the summary. Overall the news article was lacking in information provided in the scholarly article. The news article focused on explaining what cultural neuroscience was and not on the research done to find cultural effects on the brain. The news article was not reliable and did not speak about how volunteers were found and how the experiment was conducted. I learned that journalists write to their audience. The scholarly article would not be easily understood by someone with no background in psychology. The news article explained a small portion of the scholarly article and then explained neuroscience in the way that most people could understand. The scholarly article writers aimed their writing towards other psychologists that could understand their experiments and work. When I was writing this I was trying to break down what I read in the scholarly article and make it easier to read for someone who does not have that much of a background in psychology. Unlike the pop culture article I stayed along the lines of the actual experiment happening in the scholarly article. It was fairly difficult to decide what I wanted to include in my summary of the article. A lot of what I read would not make sense to somebody who has not been doing research in psychology.

--Original published at Cecilia's Thoughts

Research completed by Jarrod Brock and Melissa Burkley about the sexual violence apparent in society, especially in pop-culture. On the Prowl: Examining the Impact of Men-as-Predators and Women-as-Prey Metaphors on Attitudes that Perpetuate Sexual Violence is the research behind this problem. This research also identifies potential consequences of the metaphors about men being predators and women being their prey. “In 2017, reports of widespread sexual harassment kick-started a global-wide discussion on sexual misconduct and shined a light on the #MeToo movement.” (Bock & Burkley. May, 2018) Pop culture today is full of women being depicted as men’s prey in the form of metaphors in both movies and music. In Melissa and Jarrod’s research they discuss their metaphor theory: this is the theory that metaphors and their implications are engraved into someone’s brain and it then becomes part of their unconscious thoughts, which ultimately alters a person’s attitudes and behaviors without them realizing the change. In this case, it alter’s a person’s attitude and behavior towards rape and sexual misconduct. One metaphor that the article discusses is animal metaphors is the most common form of metaphors used in pop culture today. Women are more likely to be referred to as animals then men. This is linked to attitudes that increase sexual violence, including sexism, rape, sexual harassment and attitude towards rape victims. Brock and Burkley describe these metaphors as men as prey and women as predators, which like it sounds refers to women being preyed on by men in songs and movies that society hears and sees everyday.  There were two studies conducted on this metaphor with different groups that participated. In study 1, there were 120 women and 82 men from different ethnic groups ranging from 18 to 36 years old with a undergraduate education. They were randomly assigned to the two groups, the metaphor reading or the control reading. They used the Illinois Rape Myth Acceptance (IRMA) which measures one’s attitude towards rape and rape victims. As well as five items from the Attraction to Sexual Aggression Scale (ASA) which assesses the participants proclivities towards consensual rape and sex. In study 2 they used the Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk) for their data collection, and in these samples the participants are younger, more liberal people that are less racially diverse. These samples are still reliable and the results are extremely similar to those of the other sampling methods. Both studies were asked to read a story about a man on a date with a women, and there were predator/prey metaphors throughout and then there was a second version, the control, where there were no metaphors. In both of these studies the results showed that men’s attitudes towards rape were affected by the metaphors, but did not see a change in women’s answers. These results are consistent with each way to collect data. After researching this study is has become more prominent that sexualizing women and looking at them as prey is apparent in society. As this research continues and more studies are conducted, there are hopes that the people of society acknowledge this problem and evaluate if you, yourself are an offender of looking at women as prey. Awareness of this problem is the most important part of solving the problem and reducing its effects.

Reflection:

After writing this summary of the research, I have a new found respect for journalists. It is not only difficult to have specific parameters for the word count, but it is also difficult to use enough quotes and direct information from the research article while not plagiarizing. I also learned that it is more time consuming to read the research decide what is most important then the actual writing of their summary is. Not only is it time consuming, but also stressful for the journalist to pick apart these extenuous research studies all while working under a due date. The first assignment evaluating the pop culture article was easiest because the author had already put the research into words that were easier for me to understand, but I still struggled with avoiding plagiarism and writing things too similar to the original article. The research article critique was by far the hardest, even though I had an easier study to write about. My biggest challenge was deciding which information was important enough to include in the summary and what information was not needed to help the reader fully understand the research study. The media production project, where I had to write my own interpretation of the pop culture critique using the research article was my favorite because it allowed me to decide what needed to be included and what did not. Though I did worry that what I chose and wrote may be too similar to the original pop culture article. Overall this project shed a new light on both journalists and the people that conduct research and I will now pay more attention to the little things, like metaphors in a song so I am more aware of how it is effecting myself and the people around me.

Resources

Pop Culture Article:

Burkley, M. May 25, 2018. New Study Shows Pop Culture Encourages Men to Prey on Women. Psychology Today. Retrieved from https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-social-thinker/201805/new-study-shows-pop-culture-encourages-men-prey-women

Research Article:

Bock, J. & Burkley, M. May 25, 2018. On the Prowl: Examining the Impact of Men-as-Predators and Women-as-Prey Metaphors on Attitudes that Perpetuate Sexual Violence. Springer Link. Retrieved from https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11199-018-0929-1

--Original published at Marisa Psych Blog

Marisa Krinock

November 26, 2018

Professor MacFarlane

Media Production Assignment

Over an extensive period of time, researchers have pondered and looked for answers connected to the topic of A.D.H.D.. In this case, the research was focused on preschoolers as well as comparing and contrasting of brain scans of ones who do and do not possess attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. This type of study carries a goal of creating a better understanding within data, research and results. Throughout the process of this study, it would be educational to parents in what to look for in their child’s, early childhood behavior.

This study started with a group of researchers, participants, a question, and an outline of the study about to be conducted. The senior author of this study, Dr. Mark Mahone, created this study to share knowledge to the public, identifying both the biological and behavioral differences seen through the early childhood of children. By observing this topic with his colleagues, they were able to complete a list of qualifications a child must possess to participate in the study, allowing families to benefit from the results in learning more about their child’s make up. Factors from other research and studies show data of changes occuring in the brain at a early stage of a child’s life.

Stemming from the department of neuropsychology at the Kennedy Krieger Institution in Baltimore, director Dr.Mahone as well as several of his colleagues began the basic of their study with advanced brain scans  on children. The age of the children ranged from 4 and 5 years olds. All of the children partaking in the study possessed similar societal components such as age, gender, socioeconomic status, I.Q., and established language ability and function. Keeping the children’s traits similar allows the researchers to focus on an alike group of individuals, controlling who participates. After the scans, the director as well as his colleagues were able to establish similarities and differences of the scan results. A total of 90 children received scans.This study used M.R.I. scans to conduct and find their results.  Of the 90, 52 of the children’s brain scan showed signs of A.D.H.D., and 38 did not. Of the one’s who did possess symptoms of A.D.H.D., the results were very mixed. Differences were mostly found in specific regions of the brain, and results even showed a popular result of a smaller brain overall.

An A.D.H.D. diagnoses for a child is made easier at a young age. Allowing parents to know what their child’s disorder is and how to grow and deal with it, having it affect them in the least harmful way possible. These “difference” are said to visible by the time a child reaches the age of 4 years old. Creating a study for a major disorder that seems to be growing in popularity gives the public knowledge on what to look for in connection to A.D.H.D..

Attention deficit hyperacttivity disorder is seen as to be a considerably normal development in young children due to various behaviors that connect with not only normal behaviors of a child but also are seen as factors of this disorder. Being able to pinpoint patterns in ones behavior creates data and may be watched to review any changes over time. This is a disorder that is very clearly developed and onset when a child is in their early childhood years. A.D.H.D. is categorized as a biological disorder. This is a disturbance of one’s genetic material connecting to the structure of ne overall. The study allowed certain patterns and behaviors to discover this. Not only that, but an explanations of the symptoms that many many children experience were revealed as the scans came to an end. Knowledge like this gives parents a sense of direction in what to look for as their child goes through early development.

REFLECTION:

While going through the process of writing another summary of the first research article I used, I have learned alot about this topic. Not only do i have a better understanding of A.D.H.D. as a whole, but am confident enough to say I could accurately write more about it. The amount of work that was done during this project gives you alot of time to review the material, making sure you don’t miss any key points through the text, relating back to the data and the looked over study itself. While doing this assignment, I kept the five critical questions in the back of my head as I reviewed the text again. The article seemed to answer the critical questions, some more detailed than others. The study was aimed at a select group of children, with elements and qualifications that needed to be met in order to partake in the testing. This showed a sense of control, making sure the children has similarities through all aspects of their early childhood years.The way the participants were chosen, as well as how they were was written quite clearly. It was directed toward a specific age group in order to produce results, seeing the similarities and differences in each brain scan. The variables of this test were laid out in terms in which anyone would be able to accurately interpret them.

As I was summarizing the first research article, I did not feel the need to overwrite about details connecting to the study, in which I felt this author did. They were a few parts in the text where the information felt repetitive and seemed to be said multiple times, just in different wording. It was a little complicated trying to find what you think is most important to use in a summary because overall you are just generalizing all of the information and data given to you. In the summary I wrote, I tried to stick to the main point the test was trying to get across, not allowing any room for possible wrong interpretation or wandering questions. Being able to step inside the shoes of a journalist had its difficulties, but overall the main goal is to find the most informative and correct aspects of the research infront of you. Being able to not just understand what you are reading, but being able to find the key aspects of the article overall. I have learned from being a journalists throughout all three of these assignments, that authors write how they want their work to be interpreted. Making the reading grab your attention and have you focus on different aspects of the article as your personal interest in what you are reading will continue to grow. This opens people up to the topic, and hopefully interests them enough to look deeper into the content. Keeping the information direct and focused, but at the same time not limiting the future audience of who will read or be interested in the article is something that I believe is very important in journalism. Allowing an individual to learn about a topic while incorporating main ideas and key points of the study and research, this is what journalism is all about.

--Original published at HannahsCollegeBlog

Bullying does not just happen in school by peers; but in the safety of a child’s own home, is they can suffer from the most aggression by their own sibling(s). Due to this at home bullying, it has shown to increase the likely-hood of young adults developing psychotic disorders. The University of Warwick, located in the UK, found that through one of their studies, sibling bullying is linked to mental disorders such as schizophrenia. The study also showed that it is not just the victim who is susceptible, but also the perpetrator, both sides of the act are affected.

The researchers wanted to go more in depth on this topic, looking for a correlation between sibling bullying and the development of a psychotic disorder. The study was conducted to answer four questions: is an association between experiencing sibling bullying (victimization or perpetration) at 12 years and the development of psychotic disorder by the age of 18; is a dose-response relationship between the frequency of experiencing sibling victimization or perpetration and psychotic disorder; whether the role taken in sibling bullying (victim, bully, bully-victim) is differentially associated with the psychotic disorder and whether being the victim in more than one setting is cumulatively associated with the development of the psychotic disorder.

The participants involved in this study were selected from a birth cohort. Once the children from the cohort reached twelve years, they took a sample of 3596 children who had previously filled out questionnaires. These participants were then separated into categories based on their results from the questionnaires; the categories consisted of the victim, the bully, the “bully-victim”, and non-involved. The results showed that out of the sample size, 664 came back as being victims, 486 were bullies, and 771 were bully-victims.

Once the participants were around eighteen years of age, the researchers conducted another test to show any symptoms or development of psychotic disorders. The results showed that out of all 3596 participants, 55 of them developed a psychotic disorder by the age of eighteen. The data collected from this study shows that victimized children have around three times the likelihood of meeting the criteria for a psychotic disorder. The data also shows that both sibling bullying and peer bullying can increase the risks of developing a psychotic disorder.

Results from the study indicate that any type of involvement in sibling bullying will increase the chances of acquiring a psychotic disorder; although, the strongest correlation was found with children who were pure victims or bully-victims. Based on the results of this study, parents and health professionals should become aware of the negative long-term effects of sibling bullying.

Word count: 429

Pop culture article word count: 440

Link to full study: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/psychological-medicine/article/sibling-bullying-in-middle-childhood-and-psychotic-disorder-at-18-years-a-prospective-cohort-study/4B750A1729BA23DFA0CFE96B3F01A9E9/core-reader

Link to pop-culture article: https://www.studyfinds.org/children-bullied-siblings-more-likely-devleop-psychotic-disorders/

Reflection

When creating my own pop culture article, I did find it a little challenging to decide what to put in the article and what to leave out. This was a very difficult task because the study contained a substantial amount of information. But, deciphering which details were just little details, important to the psychologists, and which were larger details important to the broad topic of the study was the most challenging part for me.

When writing this article, I tried to fit all the five critical questions into the paper without going over the word count. The first question I included by letting the reader know what the independent and dependent variable were without straight out stating it. I included the second question by letting the reader know where the original study selected their participants from. The third question was included by stating how the researchers assigned the participants to different groups. For the fourth question, I included in my article, the casual claims that were made in the study. For the last question, I did try to aim my writing to the general public, by keeping the wording simple for people who do not know much about psychology, to understand.

My summary of the study and the news article are very similar, but also have a few differences. Both articles include the basics, where the study was done and what it was about. As well as including the number of participants involved and the results from the study. The news article, unlike my summary, includes a lot of quotes from psychologists and organizations, that I feel, are just extra information that is not vital to the study. The pop culture article also did not include the main points of what the researchers wanted to find by conducted the study. My summary included all four points the researchers wanted to answer by the study.

By experiencing these different projects, it has largely opened my eyes to the scientific side of the journalism world. By doing the first assignment, the pop culture article critique, it made me realize that maybe every article is not as scholarly as you might think. The pop culture article left out some major details about the study, but included quotes from psychologists, that the article could do without. The scholarly article critique made me realize how much work, information, and detail go into a scholarly article. Lastly, the Pop media project helped me put myself in other writers’ shoes and realize how hard it is to pick out details from a very large amount of information that is in front of you.

--Original published at Tyler's Ideas

Media Article

Feeling out of the loop is a feeling people of this generation know far too well. Why do we feel the need to know everything about people that are “famous?” What makes them famous in the first place? Why is this feeling considered to have the same psychological effects of partial ostracism? Questions like these and more are addresses in the studies examined in ““Who’s That?”: The Negative Consequences of Being Out of the Loop on Pop Culture.”  by three different psychologists. The psychologists looked at how the feeling of being out of the loop was mediated by the relationship between familiarity of musicians, celebrities, logos, and other pop culture stimuli and need satisfaction as well as negative moods.

Each study conducted asked undergrad students, who were required for a course or extra credit, to view different photographs of pop culture stimuli. The first experiment focused on musicians. The participants were informed that most people knew who this musician was and then they were asked to identify them. Following the viewing, participants were asked to rate how out of the loop they felt as well as need for satisfaction. The results showed that viewing musicians that were said to be very famous, and not knowing who they were, lead to a greater feeling of being out of the loop as well as less need satisfaction and increased negative mood. The second study confirmed the results of the first using a greater number of students. The same steps were taken to collect data.

The third experiment used the same type of participants but used pop culture logos instead. The same results were found when participants were unfamiliar with the logos that were said to be recognized by many. The final experiment was not exactly the same as the first three. Instead of being shown a picture, participants were asked to take a quiz to show their interests and preferences on certain pup culture subjects. While some took quizzes about more familiar pop culture subjects, other took a quiz on pop culture subjects many do not know about. It was found that the people taken the more unfamiliar quiz reported results of lower need satisfaction and a more negative mood.

Following the study, it was found that being unfamiliar with elements of pop culture leads participants to feel more out of the loop, lower need satisfaction, as well as a more negative mood for college aged people. It was concluded being out of the loop is also a form of partial ostracism and it effects humans’ basics need satisfaction and mood. The results of this study suggest being out of the loop, in concerns to pop culture, may be worse compared to other information.

Pop-culture article : https://digest.bps.org.uk/2018/05/01/even-those-participants-who-claimed-pop-culture-is-unimportant-suffered-psychological-ill-effects-from-feeling-out-of-the-loop/

Scholarly article : http://psycnet.apa.org/record/2016-32098-001

Reflection

I found writing a new article to be very challenging. Honestly, starting the summary was quite difficult for me. I knew that I had to writing something that would catch an audience’s attention and I am honestly not sure if I even did that. Information such as the actually data had to be left out. I chose to do this because I thought that an audience wouldn’t really care about the numbers but not the overall concepts of the study. Throughout the entire psychology in the media project, I have gained a new perspective of journalists over each different assignment. To being, after reading the initial article in the pop culture article assignment, I felt that the journalist job was probably pretty easy. You just have to write a summary of an article and make it interesting how hard could it really be. Following the scholarly article critique, I thought simply the journalist that wrote my pop culture article was just not very good. They left out a bunch of information I thought would be necessary as well as assumed some things that were not stated in the scholarly article. Finally, after writing my own article, I realize just how difficult it is. Between not knowing what information may be important and not wanting to be redundant when the study repeated itself many times, I found that I had a great deal of trouble. My perspective of journalists has changed for the better. I have a new-found respect for what they do.

Citation

Iannone, N. E., Kelly, J. R., & Williams, K. D. (2018). “Who’s that?”: The negative consequences of being out of the loop on pop culture. Psychology of Popular Media Culture, 7(2), 113-129.http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/ppm0000120

Witkowski, Tomasz. “Even Those Participants Who Claimed Pop Culture Is Unimportant Suffered Psychological Ill Effects from Feeling out of the Loop.” Research Digest, 1 May 2018, digest.bps.org.uk/2018/05/01/even-those-participants-who-claimed-pop-culture-is-unimportant-suffered-psychological-ill-effects-from-feeling-out-of-the-loop/.

--Original published at Kaylyn's PSY105 Blog

The immense amount of sugar consumed in both the United Kingdom and United States has not only affected people’s physical health, but also their mental health. In the United Kingdom people are consuming two times the recommended amount of sugar. Another issue on the rise is depression, which may become the leading cause of disability by 2030 (Knüppel 1).  There was a study done in London which was aimed at seeing if there is a connection between high sugar intake and depression. The study was published in Scientific Reports, and consisted of non-industrial civil servants from the “Whitehall II Study”. Their initial sample size was 10,308 individuals, whose ages ranged from 35 to 55. Once separated by sexes, the 10,308 individuals consisted of 33.1% of them female, and 66.9% were male (Knüppel 2).

The study was done in eleven phases and they used multiple methods in order to collect data about sugar intake and mental health of the participants. At each phase, the participants had to go through different tests and screenings. Most of the data collected was based off of the people’s self-reports. The types of data collection tools used were questionnaires, diet diaries, and doctor examinations. They also required participants to report on their other habits; such as physical activity, smoking, amount of sleep, and alcohol intake. They also needed to account for diseases, and other physical issues, which may have been present in their participant pool. The researchers were able to account for some lurking variables that may have been present over the course of their study. The researchers needed to try and account for people who may have misreported their data. In order to adjust for this, they omitted data points that would be considered extremely far-fetched. The factors of this study included the amount of sugar consumed per day by the people in the study. In men, the top third of the study consisted of men who consumed above 67 grams of sugar per day, and the bottom third was men who consumed below 39.5 grams per day (Knüppel 3). The results of the study were different than they were expecting because they only found a connection between sugar intake and increased depression risks in males.

The results were that the correlation between sugar consumption and depression were only connected in men. They are unsure as to why the connection was only present in the male population and not the women. This is concerning to men because a man who eats a lot of sugar will be 23% more likely to experience common mental disorders(Knüppel 6). This shows that men need to be careful about the amount of sugar they eat in order to reduce the risk of depression.

Sugar is involved in many of our foods, even foods we would not consider to be high in sugar. Also, it is cheap and easy for people to get a huge soda which is full of sugar. For example, McDonald’s has a one dollar any size promotion on their sodas. This means you can get a small or large soda for the same price. Sugary foods can be found easily on the cheap side; however, there are healthier food and drink options which are often found accompanying a high price tag. This may explain why sugar consumption has increased, because sugar is cheap, and more people can afford sugary foods over vegetables or fruits. One way to help the sugar epidemic is to lower the price of healthier alternatives, and/ or tax sugary products to make them more expensive.

Reflection:

For my summary of the scholarly article I tried to incorporate answers to the five critical questions; however, I did not explicitly say what it answered. For how they operationalized their variables I took from the article the male and female top third and bottom third amounts. Next, when discussing how they selected participants, they chose them from the Whitehall II study which consists of non-industrial civil servants. How they assigned to groups was not available because there was no separation into groups besides sex. They also cannot make causal claims due to the lack of randomization that occurred in the study. I do believe that it was generalized to the right population because it talks about men a lot.

The author of my original pop culture article, Derek Beres, spoke about what is currently being done in politics to reduce the sugar consumption increase. He spoke of a tax being put in place in Britain and how we will not see something similar in the United States due to Donald Trump’s diet. Where he put information on what is being done, I chose to put suggestions on what can be done to help decrease sugar consumption (Beres 8). He also did not go into great detail about how the study was done, he mostly mentioned how many people were in it, and how long the study lasted. Derek Beres did not go into great detail about the study itself and mostly focused on the results. I chose to go into more detail about the study instead of just focusing on the results. I think it is important to show people how they came to the result and the facts behind the study.

Being put in a journalist’s shoes really gives one a new outlook on the career and how much they need to put into an article. The word restraint was very difficult for me because I like to go into detail rather than just getting major points. It is hard to fit a summary to a scientific paper into an around 700-word article, much less make it sound interesting. I was unable to fit in a lot of the scientific jargon; such as p-values and quantitative results. Not only would it make the article exceed my word limit, but the average people would not be able to understand it. Also, scientific words and ideas are not very glamourous or interesting and would make people click off. You really need to pick and choose the information you put into an article. Journalists need to make the science sound interesting so people will click on it and read it. People talk about “click-bait” titles; however, in order to get people to read it, you almost need to have “click-bait”. If you come across an article labeled, “Sugar study done in London shows that sugar is bad for your mental health”, people may roll their eyes because the idea that sugar is bad for you is not new. People are more likely to click on one that says something similar to, “New Study finds that Sugar is Detrimental to a Male’s Mental Health”. It gives a hint of fear and sounds interesting. When critiquing these articles for not having enough information essential to answering the 5 critical questions, it can now be seen how they may be unable to fit it all in. They also need to do research and read the scholarly article which is very difficult to read through and yet we do not often think about that when reading a pop culture article.

Works Cited

Beres, Derek. “New Study Finds Sugar Increases Risk of Depression in Men.” Big Think, Big Think, 5 Oct. 2018, bigthink.com/21st-century-spirituality/new-study-finds-sugar-increases-risk-of-depression-in-men.

Knüppel, Anika, et al. “Sugar Intake from Sweet Food and Beverages, Common Mental Disorder and Depression: Prospective Findings from the Whitehall II Study.” Nature News, Nature Publishing Group, 27 July 2017, http://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-017-05649-7.

--Original published at Marlee's Psych 105 Blog

Media Production

At the University of Binghamton and Community College of Broom, a study was conducted to answer a controversial question: Why are rapes both common and underreported in the college setting?  In the study, both male and female participants were randomly chosen to read a series of vignettes in which described a series of events that depicted a clear incident of rape. In the vignettes, there were multiple different situations in which the rape happened between either a man against a woman, a man against a man, woman against a man. After reading the situations the participants were asked how much blame could be associated with the victim or the attacker. Next, they were asked, that in the victims’ shoes, would they tell anyone if the rape happened and if they would report it to the authorities. Surprisingly individuals reported that they would not report the rape even if the incident was clearly sexual assault.
The participants answers varied due to two factors: gender role beliefs and sexual orientation. These factors along with the sex of the victim in the vignette seemed to determine how the participants placed the blame. The results of the study showed heterosexual participants placing more blame on the victims then on the attacker. In these cases, it was the traditional beliefs of masculinity and gender that made the participants decisions. It was also found that participants decided to report the rape off of the attacker’s actions rather than the victims.
The results showed of all groups participating, the male heterosexual showed the most victim blame, lowest attacker blame, and lowest rate of disclosure to the authorities. This response seemed to be driven by the masculine gender ideology. It was also found that female-on-male sexual assault caused a decreasing of blame placed on the attacker and more on the victim because a male should theoretically be able to defend themselves from a female.

Reflection

After reading through the pop culture and scholarly research article, I learned when you are reading psychological research it is very important to focus on the little things not just the overarching concepts. In my writing I tried to keep in mind the 5 Critical Questions that we were taught during class. I found this assignment to be the most challenging of the three because it was challenging trying to condense my research article which was 20 plus pages, into less than 600 words. Deciding what to incorporate and what to cut out was very hard because I felt that all parts of the research were important otherwise why were they written in the first place. When writing my summary, I wanted to make sure that is was generalized to the right population, so my readers could understand the research with ease. I decided to take out some of the p values because I felt that they weren’t necessary to the summary of the experiment.
In our pop culture assignments, we had to analyze how journalists were able to incorporate important information into their work, but actually having to do it first hand, I understand it is not an easy task. For the sense of journalism, the writers incorporated information which wasn’t scientifically significant, but that would grab the reader’s attention.

--Original published at Psychology 105

Article

Can marijuana be used to treat depression? It may be possible, according to researchers from the São Paulo Research Foundation in Brazil. In a recent study published by the group, they claimed cannabidiol (CBD), a compound found in Cannabis sativa, shows more rapid and longer lasting effects than commercial antidepressants. The researchers conducted five individual experiments to test their claims, and the results appear to be promising.

There were two main goals of the study that were explicitly described by the group. The first was to test if CBD can induce antidepressant effects that were immediate and sustained over time. The first of the five experiments focused on testing CBDs’ effects by subjecting groups of rodents to the forced swim test. Different species of rodents were bred to develop symptoms of depression, totaling 367 participants. The subjects were randomly assigned to treatment groups. One was treated with CBD and the other was injected with a placebo solution. The group operationalized the antidepressant effects of CBD by analyzing the amount of time spent swimming versus the amount of time spent immobile in the water. The subjects were submitted to the test 6 minutes after being treated to see the acute effects of the drug. They were then tested again after 7 days to see if it showed sustained effects as well. They were also subjected to the open field test 30 minutes and 7 days after treatment in order to eliminate the possibility that CBD simply causes an increase in locomotor function, rather than actual antidepressant-like effects. Another behavioral test was conducted in the fifth experiment, where the rodents were submitted to a series of electrical shocks. The subjects’ ability to avoid the shocks was characterized as the antidepressant effect in this experiment.

The second goal of the study was to see how CBD causes antidepressant affects, namely by identifying specific changes that occur from a neurological perspective. Experiments two through four of the study focused on analyzing specific neuronal effects of the drug rather than behavioral effects. The second experiment tested if CBD uses the same signaling pathway as other antidepressants. The researchers euthanized the subjects after completing the behavioral tests described above and injected the brain with a dye marker. Then they tried to see if the effects of CBD could be inhibited by blocking these pathways with receptor antagonists. In the third experiment, they dissected the subjects’ brains to analyze the levels of brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) and other synaptic proteins. In the fourth experiment, the researchers wanted to see if CBD impacted the number of dendritic spines found in the prefrontal cortex and hippocampus. By analyzing the effects of CBD on the brain, the researchers were able to compare them to the effects of commercial antidepressants and draw conclusions based on the results.

Overall, the researchers’ claims were supported by the results of the various experiments. Cannabidiol appears to demonstrate specific antidepressant-like effects. Subjects injected with CBD had increased performances in the forced swim test and electrical shock test with no significant impact on their locomotor function. Also, they showed similar neurological pathways to commercial drugs as well as a significant increase in BNDF, synaptic proteins, and dendritic spines. From the results of these behavioral and neurological tests, it appears CBD could be used an effective treatment for depression. The study notes, however, that much more research is needed in order make serious causal claims that could be applied to human subjects.

Reflection

The original study is very detailed, but it contains a lot of information that readers do not need to know to understand its premise and conclusion. I tried to outline the most important aspects of the study. Although I did try to keep in mind the five critical research questions while I was writing, this was difficult since each experiment conducted in the study had its own unique variables.  Overall though, my main goal was to summarize the basic methodology used in each experiment and give an overview of the results. Then I related this back to the original hypothesis and goals that the authors of the study described in the abstract. I tried to omit as much jargon as I could. I also decided to leave out specific values for the results because this could easily be very confusing for the reader and would have also made the article extremely lengthy.

The pop culture article I read and the article that I wrote are similar in format. We both describe the sample population of the study and detail the methodology and results. I, however, tried to give a more basic overview of each of the experiments, while the pop culture piece gave a lengthy summary of only one of the tests. I think a crucial point we both included is that the results currently have limited applications. Given that the experiments were conducted on rodents, the findings cannot yet be generalized to human populations. This ensures that the reader is not misled about the conclusions of the study.

While writing my article, it was difficult to decide what to include from the study without having to go into extensive detail. I can see how journalists would have a hard time doing this, as well as making the article a piece that people browsing the Internet would want to click on and read. Obviously, scholarly research is going to be very in-depth. I think that pop culture articles provide a way for the public to learn about psychological research in a way that is more user friendly. It is important for authors to be truthful though, rather than generalizing the information found in studies and portraying it in an inaccurate fashion.

Citations

Amanda J. Sales, Manoela V. Fogaça, Ariandra G. Sartim, Vitor S. Pereira, Gregers Wegener, Francisco S. Guimarães, Sâmia R. L. Joca. Cannabidiol Induces Rapid and Sustained Antidepressant-Like Effects Through Increased BDNF Signaling and Synaptogenesis in the Prefrontal Cortex. Molecular Neurobiology, 2018; DOI: 10.1007/s12035-018-1143-4

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo. “In test with rats, cannabidiol showed sustained effects against depression for seven days.” ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 30 August 2018. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/08/180830113004.htm>

--Original published at HarrysCollegeBlog

With the Video Games becoming more and more popular, many teens across the globe rave about video games, and during play become so emotionally invested in it. Despite it being a virtual game, something about it makes my friends and I invest our time and energy better put towards other things, into this video game. This isn’t only because we play video games competitively either, many others who casually play video games also have this urge. Video games must have some sort of Emotional effect to have us be so fascinated by it. 

Upon thinking of video games and their effects on the human one thing comes to mind: Social Opportunities. Social opportunities are evolved reactions with emotions to engage in adaptive behaviors. These are things such as happiness when presented with success, and sadness when faced with failure etc.

This can be shown in a recent study performed by Guitar, A, E., Glass, D. J., Geher, G., &  Suvak, M. K. (2018) testing Nesse and Ellsworth’s (2009) model of emotions for situations that arise in video games. The study was performed in a video game called “Second life” and participants were to be competing with other players to complete a given task. The interactive video game was chosen because of how it can put players in situations without risking their lives, while still mimicking the life-like danger it could potentially hold. to further enhance the experience, the players were given rewards for completing it. 

The study itself measured 4 things from the participants in terms of social opportunity: Physical opportunities, physical threats, Social opportunities, and social threats. the variables in the study were controlled, but no participant in the study knew about this. They were asked to give feedback on their emotions, and the results of the study found that Video Games are very very good at evoking emotions from social opportunity. when presented with opportunities they had pride for themselves, when faced with threats they became hostile, and when faced with failure, they found not only sadness, but also pride and content. This was most likely due to the lack of death, thus lowering the shame and fear it would have caused.

Video games in general, are a way to simulate the real world without any real danger to the player. The way we interact with it would suggest its able to evoke emotions almost as well as in the real world. Its competitive nature is very appealing, and overall lack of real death allows for a much safer, friendlier environment.

Sources:

Geher, Glenn. “Video Games and Emotional States.” Psychology Today, Sussex Publishers, 3 Sept, 2018,https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/darwins-subterranean-world/20189/video-games-and-emotional-states

Guitar, A, E., Glass, D. J., Geher, G., &  Suvak, M. K. (2018). Situation-specific emotional states: Testing Nesse and Ellsworth’s (2009) model of emotions for situations that arise in goal pursuit using virtual-world software. Current Psychology. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-018-9830-x

Reflection:

The writing process of summarizing the paper I found to be challenging. The original text has a lot of detail going into it, and I had to summarize much of what was in the Scholarly article, such as much of the explanation done before the actual study to give context on what was going on. some of this context was information about the brain, social patterns, common practices, etc. Much of the beginning was committed to explaining Darwin’s thoughts and theories about the subject, such as his notion that emotions hold the potential of accurately describing out minds.

Evolutionary Emotions was another theory of his that was important to the article, which explained how the human mindset evolved over time due to our environment and how we adapted to it. This was cut out mostly due to the length and how much material there was to cover.

Another section was dedicated to an in depth analysis of the results, going over the layout of the graphs and information, to explaining what each variable and factor meant, and how they got the information as well. They also had some reflections, going back saying how the information was not recorded live, but was done afterwards, with participants reflecting back on them. They acknowledged the limitations their study had, and much of this was cut out due to lack of time on my own part. The experience was overall a good one, and it has given myself more pride in Video Gaming.

--Original published at Zachs College Blog

The reasons why people tend to stay in unhappy relationships

By: Zach Petiet

The decisions to end a relationship with someone you love can have a serious impact on yourself but even your partner. Research has focused on two sole reasons on why people tend to allow themselves to stay in unfulfilling relationships. The first reason is that people feel that they’ve already invested a great deal of time, energy, emotion which would all go to waste if it were to end. The second reason is the individual believes that the idea of a relationship with someone different would be less appealing than their current relationship. Researchers have also identified these reason as both self-focused as they are looking out for themselves. Although, Researchers began to take a deeper look into whether or not people tend to stay in relationships for the sake of their partner. studies on decision-making shows that people are naturally motivated to consider their partners needs.

In this research article, they argued whether or not the stay/leave decision are based of of the individual’s dependence on the relationship but also also on the partners dependence on the relationship. Many individuals have a prosocial decision making process which means both individuals benefit. There is a strong assumption which states that people’s actions are usually always guided by self-interested motivation. Also, research has shown that people have inherent inclinations to consider the interests and need of others. The interdependence theory is a theory that can be described as how people make choices that involve other people. This theory proposes that all people have the choice in whether or not to maximize the outcomes of the situation that will benefit them. The statement that says people make relationship choices with their partners feelings in mind goes very well with the idea of the interdependence theory. Each persons needs, goals, and motivations need to be considered in accordance to their partner’s rather than a more secluded approach. For this to be achieved, an individual must move away from a focus more on self-interest to a focus on the more prosocial concerns. As a relationship continue to grow, you will see this transformation process progress. The interdependence theory also states that transformation of motivation occurs when an individual adopts new rules for how to control interactions with people. This rule includes taking broad considerations instead of the direct and the instantaneous impact of the interaction on self benefit. Lastly, the interdependence theory states that people do act out of the concern for their partner’s needs as long as they adopt a prosocial rule that includes their partner’s wants and needs.

The statement that people care about their partner’s feelings and needs goes very well with interdependence and decision-making theory and has been supported by much research. Although, no research has tested whether or not prosocial concern has any influence on relationship stay/leave decisions. It is very important for someone to prioritize their partner’s needs because by doing that it allows this individual to continue to enjoy the enjoyment of the relationship and not have to worry about losing the relationship as a whole. Much of the research on stay/leave decisions has been helped by the investment model. The investment model states that many people choose to stay in a relationship when they feel dependent on their partner to satisfy their needs. The investment model has three specific categories which includes satisfaction, investment, and quality of alternatives. One additional hypothesis states that people are usually motivated to remain in a highly committed relationship for the sake of their partner, rather than for themselves.

In this research article, they provided two research studies that were set up to test the hypothesis which stated that people take their partner’s needs into mind when they are thinking about ending the relationship. The tests were two potential break up studies in which they picked people currently in a relationship by measuring self and partner-focused motivations for keeping the relationship. After they picked their participants they tracked their relationship status over the next two months. Researchers predicted that when a person’s self-interest for the relationship is low, their prosocial concerns for the sake of their partner will take over.

In study one, it was comprised of a two part study of the participants selected in romantic relationships. In part one, participants took a survey questioning their current relationship status, demographics, and personalty. In part two of the study, participants responded emails sent by the researchers which questioned if they were still in a relationship or not. If their relationship had ended, the participant had to indicate who ended it. This method allowed the researchers to gain knowledge on how an individuals perception of their relationship predicted their break-up decision. The main goal of study one was to test that the more dependent someone believed their partner was on the relationship the less likely they would break up. As a result of the study, researchers were able to conclude that people were less likely to break-up over the 10 week study if they believed their partner was very committed to the relationship or if they know their partner would be destroyed if they broke up.

Study two was a replication of study one which confirmed the results in study one as well as addressed several limitations in study one. They also looked to further their knowledge on the procedure through which prosocial concern affects the stay/leave decision. Researchers targeted people who were currently contemplating their commitment to their partner. Researchers also wanted to further examine three additional explanations for why people would be reluctant to break up with their very relationship dependent partner. These explanations included an individuals guiltiness, partner retaliation, and negative judgements from friends/family. Study two was a 2 month long study of people who were contemplating a break-up. Participants were first asked to complete a screening questionnaire to determine their eligibility to further the testing. The participants then took Time one and two surveys where people were eliminated and the study shrunk if the participant didn’t further meet the criteria. As a result of this study, researchers found that people were less likely to break-up with their partner over two months if they believed their partner was very committed to the relationship and if they believed staying in the relationship was in the best interest for their partner.

In conclusion, this present research further shows that people most likely always take their partner’s feelings into consideration even when deciding on potentially ending the relationship. Even when an individual is not satisfied with the relationship as a whole, realizing their partner’s needs pushes them away from breaking-up. Although, further researcher is needed for researchers to determine the positives and negatives of staying in an unsatisfying relationship just for the sake of their partner.

Reflection:

After researching and taking a deeper look into psychological research provided for the public, I’ve noticed that for psychologist to make conclusions on certain research results, it takes many studies and factors to finally be able to reach their conclusions. Also, these psychological research studies provided for the public have to provide all facts and factors that went into their research studies to provide a honest description of what they did and why they did it. Psychological researchers provide information by including the details of the studies performed and provide graphs and general conclusions on the information they generalized on. Ive learned a great deal of information on my research topic as the author of the article provide immense amounts of information on the topic and their research methods and finding. Overall, I feel that the accuracy in journalism can be hit or miss. I personally feel that many journalisms take a stance and write about what they believe or feel about a certain situation. Many times you will see a journalist focus more on one side of a study or situation instead of analyzing and provided information for all parts of a study. In journalism, accuracy is a very important factor for their pieces of work which proves that what they are writing about is credible. If the article is not completely accurate, they will lose credibility for it as a whole. Although there is subjective and objective errors with accuracy and its a hard topic to define, accuracy is the most important piece to writing a strong, beneficial piece of work.