--Original published at Maddy Vingom's PSY105 Blog

When shopping at their local grocery store shoppers are immersed into a world of marketing with advertisements around every corner. One marketing tactic customers see in within grocery stores is the placement of snacks in the checkout line. Often times people impulse buy these unhealthy snacks while waiting in line to pay for their items, this has become a major health concern when it comes to the impact of product placement on the decisions shoppers make. Five psychologists from the United Kingdom completed two longitudinal studies, in which they observed the habits of shoppers, and found by removing unhealthy snacks from the checkout line shoppers purchase less unhealthy food items. 

  Stores around the United Kingdom began to voluntarily remove candy, potato chips, and chocolate from their checkout lines in 2013 to promote healthier lifestyles. Researchers used this as an opportunity to observe how peoples shopping habits were impacted by the change. Participants in the study were regular customers of the chosen grocery stores. Psychologists believe this sample fairly represents the overall population of the United Kingdom, due to their diversity in many different areas including occupation, location, social status, age and gender. Participants were not assigned to groups due to the observational nature of both studies. Researchers of the first study accessed the data bases of six different stores and tracked purchases from 30,000 households in the United Kingdom one year before and one year after the policy regarding the removal of unhealthy snacks in the checkout line was implemented. The researchers found that these shoppers purchased 17% less unhealthy food immediately after the change was made, this number slightly decreased to 15% by the end of the study. From the years 2016 to 2017 the researchers completed an additional study in which they asked 7,500 regular shoppers if to complete a survey about snacks they purchased and ate before returning home. The surveys showed 76% less unhealthy snacks were purchased by these participants over the course of the year. Both studies show a correlation between the removal of unhealthy snacks in the checkout line and shoppers purchasing less unhealthy food within United Kingdom grocery stores. Additional research must be completed to determine whether the removal of candy, potato chips, and chocolate from checkout lines was the true cause of the change in shopping habits. 

The psychologists hope through this research they are able to promote healthier lifestyles for citizens of the United Kingdom. Providing the results to shoppers can help them to gain an understanding how marketing influences their decisions and may help them to be more aware of their tendency to purchase these unhealthy snacks. Their ultimate goal is to send their results to government agencies, in an attempt to persuade them to become more actively involved in helping to ensure the good health of their citizens.

Reflection:

The psychology in the media project has helped me to realize that often times information that we see portrayed in news articles is times not completely accurate to the actual research. It is important to read through the original source to ensure the news article is providing accurate information to readers. As I learned through this assignment journalists are typically restricted by word limits and are forced to leave out important information as a result. In order to ensure that my readers are able to understand the original study I incorporated how the researchers conducted the experiment to give readers the background of where the data came from within my summary. I also kept the five critical questions for reading research in mind to ensure that each one could be answered. I was forced to leave out certain details that were not necessarily important for the reader to comprehend the results of the study. 

 The pop culture article greatly differed from mine as a result of Ben Renner having the opportunity to speak with two out of the five researchers involved in the study. His article mainly focused on their thoughts and perspectives on the experiment, whereas mine focused on data and research methods. The summary I wrote lacks the attention-grabbing words the pop culture article contained as a result of being more data focused, resulting in a less interesting article to read. Ben Renner failed to address all five critical questions for reading research, such as how the researchers operationalized their variables and that researchers are unable to make causal claims due to the observational nature of the study. However, as previously stated, I ensured that readers could easily locate all five them within my summary.            

Through this assignment I was able to gain a better understanding of journalism, writing, and what it takes to complete a psychological study. Writing a news article about scientific research is an extensive process that requires the complete comprehension of the study and the ability to determine what information is vital for readers to understand the research and results. It is essential for an author to include answers to all five critical questions to show the credibility of the information. The balance between making a news article factual and enjoyable for the reader is difficult to achieve within the restrictions that journalists are given. I also came to the realization that it is equally important for readers to compile their own research to ensure they are getting accurate information and are able to formulate their own judgements regarding the study. 

Works Cited

Ejlerskov, K. T., Sharp, S. J., Stead, M., Adamson, A. J., White, M., & Adams, J. (2018). Supermarket policies on less-healthy food at checkouts: Natural experimental evaluation using interrupted time series analyses of purchases. PLOS Medicine. doi:10.1371/journal.pmed.1002712

Renner, Ben. “Removing Sweets from Grocery Store Checkout Lines Leads To ‘Dramatic’ Drop in Unhealthy Purchases.” Study Finds, 2 Jan. 2019, www.studyfinds.org/removing-sweets-grocery-store-checkout-aisles-fewer-unhealthy-snacks/.

Links:

https://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/articleid=10.1371/journal.pmed.1002712https:/

/www.studyfinds.org/removing-sweets-grocery-store-checkout-aisles-fewer-unhealthy-snacks/

--Original published at NataliesCollegeBlog

As growing up in the world we live in today, the words “make a good first impression” is put in the back of everyone’s head. We present ourselves by dressing up nice for interviews and practice how to be talkative or friendly; yet, there are a lot of stereotypes and judgements made at first glance. It is common people make judgements off race and facial expressions, but what about body shape? Is it really true that people associate body figure to someone’s personality traits?

Ying Hu, a psychological scientist, and other researchers from the University of Texas questioned if stereotypes pertaining to body shape affect how someone judges and interacts with strangers. In the study, there were 76 undergraduate students participants from the School of Behavioral and Brain Sciences at The University of Texas at Dallas. 140 simulated bodies created by CAESAR data set laser scans created 70 women and 70 men for the study.  There was also a personality trait list that consisted of 30 trait words from each of the 5 domain types (extraversion conscientiousness, agreeableness, openness and neuroticism) with 3 positive and 3 negative words within each category. The participants would see an image from two views: frontal and at a 45° angle. Each participant was randomly assigned to rate one of the two sets of bodies by seeing 30 traits. The study would randomly assign each student to two different groups that had 35 female bodies and 35 male bodies, which were also randomly assigned.

After the research team collected all of the data, the study was able to conclude there are wide ranges of personality traits for every body shape. Also, personality interferences are formed from physical features in someone’s body shape. Overall, there is evidence that people tend to associate personality traits based on a person’s body shape. No matter where you go, how you look automatically gives you a reputation whether it is true or not. As a society, we are already body shaming people enough and it is shown through this research too. The fear that having a certain body type affects if a person gets a job over someone else is something that we should all be aware of and fix all together.

Reflection

Once I wrote a pop culture newsletter article myself, there were a lot of things that I learned about. I now understand how hard it is for journalists to encapture data from research, and make the newsletter entertaining at the same time. Although my newsletter obtained the most important information from the study, it lacked the attention grabbing words and phrases that the original pop culture article had. In the article, I left out the smaller details of the study that talked about the Shape-To-Trait Regression Results. Although this is quality information, it is not necessary in the newsletter for the reader to understand the purpose of the experiment.

Comparing my summary to the news article, there were many things that were different. The article that I wrote about consisted more about the facts and data in the study, while the pop culture article used more direct quotes from the experimenter, Ying Hu, himself. The article was more conversational and kept the reader guessing compared to how the article I wrote was straight to the point. The news article also would add a sentence of entertainment in between the facts to make the reader keep reading. It makes the reader want to find out if they are being judged without even knowing. My article had attention grabbing sentences in the beginning but included the facts and covered all of the 5 critical questions, while the pop culture article did not.

After writing this article, I now have a better appreciation for journalists and writers. It can be very difficult at times to convey every single piece of data in an article when trying to make an attention grabbing storyline. I learned that it takes a lot of time to make something stand out and become published in the first place. This is possibly why certain details from research may not be included because of certain guidelines that need to be met by the organization that is publishing the article. It is hard to make an article entertaining without slang and informal terms. Although I now understand how tough it is to be entertaining and have data/hard facts, I still think that any good journalist would be able to provide both. Overall, this made me understand that writing articles based off research accurately is tough, which is why when reading articles everyone should look at the research too. It is just as important to read the research study that is provided along with the original article. This way the reader is able to make their own judgements by looking at multiple sources, rather than believing the first article is completely accurate.

Work Cited

Hu, Y., Parde, C. J., Hill, M. Q., Mahmood, N., & O’Toole, A. J. (2018). First Impressions of

Personality Traits From Body Shapes. Psychological Science, 29(12), 1969–1983.

https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797618799300

Marquette, T. (2019, January 25). Study: Your Body Shape Leads People To Make

Assumptions About Your Personality Traits. Retrieved February 11, 2019, from

https://www.studyfinds.org/body-shape-leads-people-assumptions-about-personality-traits/

--Original published at Jess Principe's Blog

By: Jessica Principe

Researcher have looked at the possible benefits of Brief Behavioral Therapy (BBT) over assisted referral mental health care (ARC) for youth with mental health disorders. In an original study conducted by V. Robin Weersing, David A. Brent, Michelle S. Rozenman, Araceli Gonzalez, Megan Jeffreys, John F. Dickerson, Frances L. Lynch, Giovanna Porta, and Satish Iyengar, for JAMA Psychiatry, were researching to see if the BBT therapy group showed significant mental health improvements compared to the youth recipients of ARC therapy group.

Depression and Anxiety affect about 30% of youth, but remain as two of the most under treated mental health disorders today (JAMA network, 2017). The researchers were attempting to gather evidence that the BBT therapy, which is more targeted therapy in a pediatric setting, showed superior results compared to the traditional outpatient community mental health care referral (JAMA network, 2017). Although JAMA Psychiatry states that more repeated studies will need to be done in order to increase their sample size and obtain more evidence that the BBT can be more successful in improving mental health disorders than ARC, their first study did show significant results.

The JAMA Psychiatry study recruited 95 participants from San Diego, California to the BBT group and 90 to the ARC group. The participants were not randomly selected, they were referred to by pediatricians if the patients met the requirements of a baseline test to then be placed into either the BBT or ARC group. Both groups underwent the therapy of their group for 8-12 weeks of 45 minute sessions. The results indicated that in the BBT group, 56.8% improved on a scale used to assess improvement across both anxiety and depression, and In the ARC group, only 28.2% improved (JAMA network, 2017). The Hispanic youths of the study were also observed as an additional element. The article’s results claimed that Hispanic youths had a stronger rate of improvement to their disorders in the BBT group, in which 76.5% improved, compared to the ARC group, where only 7.1% improved (JAMA network, 2017). Although it is obvious through their research that this was a smaller study, with a small sample size, and early data, the results lead the researchers to believe that their study provided significant data to expand their research.

Reflection:

The pop culture article does well in describing the results of the study, the reasons for why the study was conducted, and makes it clear that additional studies need to be done to strengthen that results of the data found. I aimed to include all of that in my summary as well. A weakness is the five critical questions are not answered well in the pop culture article, they do not discuss how the participants were selected and divided into groups like the scholarly article does. I discussed this in my summary, but also in a way that would be easy for a general audience to understand. I did not direct that results to a specific audience because the study was conducted with non randomly selected participants only from San Diego, California, therefore the results can not be generalized to any population at this time. I did not include to generalize my results to any population in my article summary nor discuss why, because a general audience reading my article may not know the correlation between random sample and generalizing results to a specific audience.

During this process, I recognize that in order to make an article, especially a science based one, easy to understand for a general audience, the study must be concise, reveal the purpose, results, and discussion accurately. One element I see is essential is to include the five critical questions, even in a pop culture article, because it makes the source more credible to advance readers such as psychologists, doctors, or professors, for example, in the case of this essay. The scholarly article does very well in including all of these elements, however, the scholarly article also includes a very detailed analysis of all the research found, making it harder for a general audience to understand compared to what is summarized in the pop culture article. For the media production assignment, I aimed for a healthy medium between the two, attempting to efficiently summarize the goals, data, and results of the research in a way that a general audience could easily understand and interpret.

References:

Weersing, V. R. (2017, June 01). Brief Behavioral Therapy for Pediatric Anxiety and Depression

in Primary Care. Retrieved March 18, 2019, from

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapsychiatry/fullarticle/2618261?resultClick=1

“Pediatrics-Based Brief Therapy Outdoes Referral for Youths with Anxiety and Depression.”

National Institute of Mental Health, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 31

May 2017,

www.nimh.nih.gov/news/science-news/2017/pediatrics-based-brief-therapy-outdoes-refer

ral-for-youths-with-anxiety-and-depression.shtml.