For this assignment, you will find and analyze an example of popular press coverage of psychological research on child social and personality development. You will find examples of childhood psychological development claims in advertising, magazines, newspapers, and all over the Internet. The popular source you choose has to include a psychological claim about childhood development and must discuss it in some detail. Note: You’ll have the most fun with a popular source that makes a causal claim, because you can then analyze whether the causal claim is warranted by actual experimental research.
Your assignment is to intelligently critique the claim of the popular press coverage by using a psychology research article. Your overall goal is to answer this larger question: Is this popular source’s claim an accurate representation of childhood social/personality development or is it misleading? There are two ways to achieve this goal.
Option 1
If the press article mentions an author and research article, then you can find the original article on which the popular coverage is based, read it, and evaluate the quality of the popular coverage. The original journal article should come from a peer-reviewed source. Did the journalist accurately describe the research? Did the journalist offer some advice on the basis of the study (e.g., “Based on this study, children should never be allowed to play outside”)? If so, is the advice correct or is it based on some misinterpretations of the study? For example, many journalists or advertisers may report a correlational study, but then give advice based upon the misinterpretation that correlation equals causation (which it does not). Or they may not report that the study was based upon a very particular population and therefore may not be applicable for some of their readers.
Option 2
For this option, you need to find at least one empirical, peer-reviewed psychological journal article on the topic and see if the journalist’s advice is warranted. For example, you may read some potty training advice in a parenting magazine that says you shouldn’t punish your child for potty accidents. Is this advice supported in the psychological literature? You will do a PsycINFO search to find a source that tests this hypothesis, and report its findings. In this option, it is also required that you find a journal article that is of high scientific quality. This means the psychological source you use must be in a journal, report empirical research, be done by a psychologist, and be peer-reviewed. See me for help if needed.
Your assignment will be a report that analyzes the journalist’s claims, with a minimum length of 2 pages, and a maximum length of 2.5 pages.
Bottom line: What does the journalist say, or imply, about the study, and is this appropriate?
This report should be in APA style, and include both articles (with retrievable links) in the list of references.
Quality work will:
- Carefully examine the journalist’s claim – is it a causal claim? An associative claim? A claim about frequency?
- State whether or not the journalist and researcher are making the same claim (for instance, is the journalist making a causal claim, whereas the researcher is only making an association claim?).
- Accurately summarize the research article you found (or the article that formed the basis for the press coverage), without plagiarizing. You must demonstrate that you have read the article, not just the abstract.
- Accurately evaluate whether the journalist, the researcher (or both, or neither) are making appropriate and verifiable claims about childhood social and personality development.
- Suggest a new, more appropriate version of the popular coverage (if applicable).
- Be comprised of original writing, and not over-rely on direct quotes from either the popular article or research article in order to meet the page minimum.
