Study shows messiness leads to behavior decline November 21, 2008

This article on FOXNews talks about a study done about messiness leading to worse behavior. At first when I read the title I was almost sure that they did the same thing that the article for television and obesity did in that they applied causation to correlation. It looked like they did that because messiness may lead to worse behavior, but bad behavior could also lead to messiness, implying that there is only correlation which does not mean there is causation. However, when I actually read through the article, the study actually did connect messiness leading to worse behavior, and they followed through by not only doing one experiment over and over again, but six different experiments.

In the first experiment, the researchers found bicycles parked in a clean alley of a shopping area where there was a no littering sign placed nearby. On the bicycles, they attached fake fliers and found that only thirty three percent of the bicyclers threw the fliers on the ground. The experimenters then vandalized the walls of the alley, drawing graffiti all over it and performed the same experiment. They found that sixty nine percent of the bicyclers threw their fliers on the ground after the walls were graffitied. They tried this experiment several times and came out with the same results.

In the second experiment, there was a fence that partially blocked the main entry into a parking lot. One sign said “no admittance” and the second sign prohibited bikes from being locked onto the fence. When the fence was clear, only twenty seven percent of the people heading towards their cars in the parking lot ignored the sign and squeezed through the gap that was not blocked by the fence. However, when the researchers locked several bikes to the fence, that number rose to eighty two percent.

The study goes on to do four more experiments, each one in a different area, ruling out the possibility that only a certain social class is effected by messiness. I agree with their methodology in each of the experiments. They re-did the experiments over and over again, eliminating biases and also the ranges of messiness were varied in some of the experiments which confirmed that the worse behavior was in fact connected to the surrounding messiness. They could not have had a questionnaire or survey for this type of study because many people would not admit to behaving worse in messier conditions since it is not socially acceptable to not follow the rules.

http://www.foxnews.com/wires/2008Nov20/0,4670,SCIMessingUp,00.html

Can a raisin cure your depression? November 21, 2008

An article on FOXNews talks about a study published in The Age. The study is believable and seems to be accurate but the title of the article is pretty deceiving. Some people, usually just skim through these articles; I know sometimes I’ll only read the title and then move on. If someone were to read this article, they may be fooled and in the future while getting groceries or something may think “Oh, I read somewhere that raisins make you happier; I’ll get some raisins.” Sure, I guess it may be good advertising for Sun-Maid Raisins, Inc., but this research is not saying that eating raisins can cure depression. On the contrary, the subjects are simply observing the raisin. In the study, the subjects held the raisin and examined it. They rolled it in their fingers and put it to their ears and looked at it very closely. And after reading the article, a raisin is not even necessary to get results; it could be practically any inanimate object. They use the raisin to learn meditation which can make you aware of your physical surroundings and your own thoughts.

This form of therapy is called Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy, or MBCT, which combines the more well known cognitive behavior therapy with meditation-like skills. The researchers claim that this is a more effective way than just simply using cognitive behavior therapy because it helps to change your thoughts and personal relationship about something in your life that may be provoking the depression. Whereas cognitive behavior therapy is used to make a person ponder over what in their life depresses them and in what ways they can come up with a solution to change it, meditation skills help the person to control their thoughts before their thoughts control them. 

The article does include the primary source in which to find the study and if it is an effective experiment, they would have had to use a long term lab experiment to test the subject’s depression as opposed to a questionnaire or a survey because the participants might just answer in a socially acceptable way. Also, they would have had to use randomization to rule out the possible biases such as age, social status, etc. The author of the article should have used another title, relating more to the topic. The topic is not raisins, but Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy. Although the title that they have may seem more likely to catch the reader’s attention, it does a poor job in representing the content of the article.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,446166,00.html

Away-facing strollers stress babies November 21, 2008

An article on CNN talks about the relationship between the way a stroller is faced and long term stress effects. There was only one study on this subject mentioned in this article, but the first time I read it through, it seemed like there was two; the article was a little confusing. The study that was mentioned was done with 2722 parents and children, ruling out the possibility of social class biases or any other biases since it was completely random. There is a quote interjected in the article by one of the researchers who claims that their experimental study shows that when the stroller was facing the parent, there was twice as more interaction between the child and the parent; however, there was no implication that they had further evidence that proved what the article said, that parents who use a stroller in which their baby is not facing them may develop long term problems in the future and could become anxious adults. And then it goes on to say that only 20 babies were used in the experiment, so I don’t know what happened to the other 2700 babies…

In the experiment, the 20 babies were rolled in a stroller for a mile and half the trip they were facing the parent and the other half they were facing away from the parent. The study claimed that parents were more likely to talk and interact with their child when the baby was facing them than when the baby was not facing facing the parent. And because of this, they are more likely to show less signs stress. They did not say where these 20 babies came from so their social class or location or other factors, such as how much interaction with the parent do they get on a daily basis or other stress factors in the child’s life, may have effected their results. Genetics could have also been a reason in which a baby was less anxious than another.  There are so many factors that could come into play in how anxious a child will grow up to be that I feel like the way a child faces in a stroller is such a minute aspect.  Most strollers, sixty two percent, have forward facing seats, where the baby does not face the parent, and I do not think that anxious people are anxious because of the way they were seated in their stroller and I think the only way the researchers could have proved otherwise was if the experiment was a long term experiment, taking other stress factors and everything else that could have skewed their results into account. 

http://www.cnn.com/2008/HEALTH/family/11/21/baby.buggies/index.html?iref=newssearch&qry=studies

Banning fast-food TV ads could dent obesity November 20, 2008

An article in the AJC talks about two studies which focus on the relationship between fast food television ads and childhood obesity. The article claims that the first study found that there could be a slight decrease in childhood obesity by ending an advertising expense tax deduction for fast-food restaurants, but the article does not include any supporting evidence. It does not even say how the researchers went about testing and finding these results. It throws in some statistics alongside these results of the first study, but it does not say how these numbers were calculated. They say that there would be an eighteen percent decline in the number of obese young children and a fourteen percent decline in the number of obese older kids if a fast food ads were banned, but the article just said that this is what the researchers claimed without saying how they went about getting these statistics.

They may have not even taken into account that children who were already obese were already couch potatoes regardless of what they watched on television. Also, the social class in which the children belonged or how many fast food restaurants were located around where they lived could should have been taken into account. In saying this, the title of this article is also kind of misleading; correlation does not equal causation. Obesity could have already been prevalent and thus been a factor in what and how much television was watched as opposed to more active children in a normal weight range.

The second study seemed to be more reliable because the article mentions an actual journal in which this study could be found, the Journal of Law & Economics, so the reader can follow their procedure and find how the researchers went about doing their calculations. In this article, the reader is told that the results of the study were taken from a survey and thousands of American families were surveyed, eliminating any possible biases; in the survey, the researchers did take into account the income of the children’s parents and how many fast food restaurants were around their home. They also made sure to include the possibility that the children were already overweight regardless of their tendencies of watching television. The second study did a better job and seemed more believable because they did not just sprinkle their research with numbers and statistics, but actually included their calculations and removed any possibility of biases. The article, however, did not clearly state what the results were, but this is not too much of a concern since the reader can find the results in the journal, and I believe that that is better than stating false information or implying causation where there is only correlation.

http://www.ajc.com/search/content/health/stories/2008/11/20/banning_fast_food_tv_ads.html

Warm hands, warm heart November 20, 2008

An article in the AJC talks about a research study done by scientists from Yale University which tested the saying, “cold hands, warm heart.” They performed two separate studies. In the first study, the scientists recruited forty one college students for the experiment and each of them were casually asked to hold a cup of either warm coffee or cold coffee by a lab worker as they were each separately led upstairs to the lab. In the lab, the student was given a depiction of a nonexistent person described as being careful, hardworking, and driven. The student was then asked to rate the person’s personality traits.  The results showed that the students holding the cups filled with warm coffee rated the person as more generous, sociable, and good natured than the students holding the cups filled with cold coffee, the traits that were chosen as seen in a “warm” personality. There were no differences among the ratings of the traits that were seen as not associated with a warm or cold personality. 

In the second study, fifty three college students were recruited and were told that they would be participating in product testing. They had each of the students hold either a heating pad or an ice pad sold in stores for pain. But the actual test was which reward the students chose for participating in the testing: an ice cream coupon or a water bottle for themselves or one for a friend. The results showed that the students which held the heating pad were more likely to choose a coupon for a friend than the students which held the ice pads. In analyzing the results of the studies, the scientists concluded that very small clues from our surroundings can heavily effect our feelings and behavior.

This article seems pretty viable because it includes the source in which the study was published, “Friday’s edition of the journal Science.” Also, it gives the researchers’ background, saying that they are from Yale University from which the lead researcher was completing his psychology graduate degree, making the research even more believable because it isn’t sponsored by a company selling mittens or something. The one concern I have for the article is that the title might be a little misleading. People might think that they need to hand out hot drinks to make a good impression, but the actual resulting behavior is a lot more subtle than that.

I agree with the methodology that the researchers used; they used deception and an actual lab study. The article claims that this study was “sneaky,” but I believe that deception was necessary to acquire reliable results. If they had told the students what they were actually testing, the results would have probably been skewed since it is human nature to pick what is socially acceptable. For instance, in the second study, if the students were told that the actual aspect that was being tested was based on what trinket they chose, they might have all chosen to give a friend a coupon. A lab study was necessary for this research as opposed to a survey or questionnaire, because what would they even put on a survey? “Do you feel nicer when you touch warm things…?” I feel like the lab study was the best way to receive reliable results. Also, I believe it was a good thing that they did two separate studies and were consistent within the two separate studies; in each study they used random college students as opposed to uneducated individuals for one study and college students for the other, and both of the studies used deception.

http://www.ajc.com/search/content/health/stories/2008/10/24/warmth_psychology_test.html