Choose one or two recent newspaper, magazine, or Internet articles describing a
ID: 3447630 • Letter: C
Question
Choose one or two recent newspaper, magazine, or Internet articles describing a research study in psychology based on the article alone, try to answer the five critical thinking questions we described earlier (What am I being asked to believe or accept?
Is evidence available to support the claim?
Can that evidence be interpreted another way?
What evidence would help to evaluate the alternatives?
and What conclusions are most reasonable?).
When you have finished, write one page describing how well you think the popular media cover the results of scientific research in psychology and how that coverage could be improved.
Explanation / Answer
The research study I want to choose is " On how violent video games are not so bad when players cooperate" authors- David Ewoldsen and John Velez at Ohio State University featured on the internet by Psychology research of the month September 2012 edition accessed from careerinpsychology.org on 02-16-2018.
This study talks about the link between violent video games when watched with a friend leads to the feeling of cooperation rather than the feeling of aggression.The study claims to be different from the earlier studies as earlier studies considered the emotional state of the person who was playing a violent video game alone. This study is about a pair.
The evidence provided in the study talks about playing with a friend and the feelings of cooperation. This is anyway going to happen. Once you are friends with someone, it means that you have a certain level of understanding with the person and booth look out for each and mostly cover each others back. So the feeling of cooperation is prerequisite in the pair of friends.The study would have been more convincing if strangers were paired up and asked to play together.
The coverage of the scientific research in the popular media I feel is one-sided. They always praise the study and talk about how this one is so good and better than the previous studies. It would be much better if the popular media can first clearly state the methodology first and then the results of the study. After this, they should then describe and discuss their understanding and appreciation for the article.