Archive for March, 2010

Forget about the Small Talk

Studies don’t get much cuter than this. A new study in Psychological Science indicates that well-being is related to less small talk and more substantive interactions with others (link).

The first thing that I thought was interesting about this study was that it was a naturalistic study, not experimental. In my experience, there aren’t too many naturalistic studies published in such a high impact factor journal. As the title of the article implies, the researchers basically eavesdropped on participants, albeit with informed consent. Participants wore recording devices that captured their interactions with others periodically.

Any research methods text will describe the pitfalls of naturalistic studies. Namely they require people to rate whatever is being observed which is an inherently difficult process. One way to address this issue is to compute an inter-rater reliability. In this case, raters categorized the content of conversations as either small-talk or substantive. The inter-rater reliability is not mentioned in this paper, which is a definite mark against the study (unless it was omitted for the purposes of limited space).

Participants also completed a life satisfaction and a personality measure to correlate the content of the conversations with their overall well-being. They found that,

higher well-being was associated with having less small talk, r = –.33, and having more substantive conversations, r = .28.

Given the correlational nature of the study, the scientists were cautious not to argue having deep conversations caused happiness, but rather pointed out that future research would do well to explore this experimentally. My question is Why didn’t they?

Mehl, M. R., Vazire, S., Holleran S. E., & Clark C. S. (2010). Eavesdropping on happiness: Well-being is related to having less small talk and more substantive conversations. Psychological Science, doi:10.1177/0956797610362675.

Special thanks to Adam Schenck for pointing out this article.

-Posted by Tyler

2010
03/25
CATEGORY
Clinical Psychology
Social Psychology
Tyler
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Experiential Psychology and the Stream of Consciousness

Experiential, or introspective psychology, is a branch of psychology that attempts to study consciousness in its raw form, as well as through altered states of consciousness, and higher states of consciousness.  This field attempts to break away from the behaviorism’s view that psychologists should only study overt behavior. Experiential psychologists understand that just because something cannot be seen, it does not mean it does not exist or play an important role.

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2010
03/24
CATEGORY
Alyssa
Experiential Psychology
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H1N1 Flu Vaccine: Supply & Demand

After the newest strain of the flu (H1N1) was reported and the first death was a child the public was confused and scared (calling the microbe “swine” flu probably didn’t help). Schools in New York City were being closed by the Mayor and the Governor at press conferences. People everywhere were infected and everyone was vulnerable because no one had immunity. In June, 2009, the World Health Organization declared the flu a pandemic. Models predicted millions would die. People didn’t know whether there was enough time to manufacture vaccines and demand was HIGH. Hysteria abounded.

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2010
03/24
CATEGORY
Current Affairs
Perception
Politics
Social Psychology
Tyler
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Will this be on the test?

Students learn lots of material in traditional lecture courses, they must realize that not all of the material they learn can be on the test. The question then is how much material do they study before they take the test? Further, is deciding to stop studying a conscious decision, or do students just study when they are able?

If students actually make a decision, does he or she stop studying after 25% of the material is known? 50%? 75%? Or maybe the student only stops studying when they think they know all of it? Alternatively, is the decision to stop more qualitative, like a general feeling of knowing the material?

I’m helping an undergraduate student explore these issues as a possible explanation for low performer’s greater metacognitive overconfidence. What do you think?

-Posted by Tyler

2010
03/23
CATEGORY
Cognitive Psychology
Metacognition
Tyler
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The Myth of the Overmedicated Child: An Author’s Failure to Find Confirming Evidence

In the New York Times, a book is reviewed in which the author, Judith Warner, admittedly cannot find the evidence that she sought to support her initial position on the overpresence of overmedicated children (i.e., that children today are overmedicated). Though the author initially only sought confirming evidence that there are many overmedicated children along with parents who are all too willing to drug their children in order to make them “more normal,” the author had much difficulty in finding any of these children or eager parents to interview for her book. As such, the author reinvented the message of her book, concluding that “most no parent takes the issue of psychiatric diagnosis lightly or rushes to ‘drug’ his or her child; and that responsible child psychiatrists don’t, either ” . In a way, the fact that she looked for confirming evidence and couldn’t find it, made her more willing to accept the alternative.

-Posted by Ashley

2010
03/03
CATEGORY
Ashley
Clinical Psychology
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