Journal to Journalism Journalism in popular media is sometimes based on scientific psychological research, but just because it quotes research is it in fact a true representation of the researcher’s data and conclusions? In this essay, both the journal and journalism copy of the research is investigated and reviewed to determine the validity of the journalism claims.
Summary of Journalism Story
An article by Ana Swanson, the disturbing thing scientists learned when they bribed babies with graham crackers, appeared in the on-line version of the Washington Post in April of 2016. Swanson’s article referenced several psychological research studies with the focus of her article landing on the research undertaken by Tasimi and Wynn at Yale University
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As the reward, the number of stickers, increased, the number of participants choosing the wrongdoer’s reward also increased.
The second part of the experiment theorized that infants would have similar moral preference. Infants of a similar geographic and familiar background were chosen to the participant group numbering sixty-four. As with experiment number one, the groups were randomly selected. Instead of the stickers and fictitious characters, graham crackers and puppets made up the variables.
Conclusions of the second experiment supported the results of the first experiment that “a willingness to pay personal costs to avoid transactions with wrongdoers is an early-emerging and fundamental aspect of human nature” (Tasimi & Wynn, 2016, p.78). Knowing this characteristic lead, the researchers to recommend further studies pursue the reason behind this aspect and why individual gains take over moral considerations when the rewards are large enough.
Validity of the Journalist Coverage of the Journal Article
The journalist covered the research article well in the areas of data and description of the study. The journalist used some literary embellishment of the conclusions and external
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article. The number of participants and age of the participants matched the research demographics of the Tasimi and Wynn articles. One area of discrepancy occurred in the journalist’s description of numerical outcomes of first experiment. Swanson wrote that “groups offered two, four or eight stickers, 16 of the 20 children chose to accept the one sticker” (Swanson, 2016) where the actual research reported eight of twenty children offered 4 or 8 stickers choice the wrongdoer (Tasimi & Wynn,
“Most people in the U.S. want to do the right thing, and they want others to do the right thing. Thus, reputation and trust are important to pretty much everyone individuals and organizations. However, individuals do have different values, attributes, and priorities that guide their decisions and behavior. Taken to an extreme, almost any personal value, attribute, or priority can “cause” an ethical breach (e.g. risk taking, love of money or sta...
The media has a leading influential impact on the minds and beliefs of millions of individuals in this society. The media plays out as an immense database for direction and knowledge, whether its through films, television shows, or the news. An individual can have no prior knowledge or influence to something, but the way the media portray information, it constructs an image throughout their mind both visual and auditory that leaves a long lasting impression. These significant impacts on society leads to generalization, assumptions and stigmas.
As a psychologist who is trying to follow up on any of the study in the articles above, I would pick the cookie monster and create two groups and randomly select participants to represent each group. I would label one group as experimental and the other group as control group. In the first group which is the experimental group, the participants will be given an analogy on how cookies boost happiness in an individual. In the process of conducting this experiment, each participant will be handed cookies whenever they are moody and depressed. However in the control group, the participants would be totally unaware of the supposed positive effect of cookie consumption, but will also be given cookies whenever they are sad. After doing this, I will sum up an evaluation on whether the intake of cookies can really improve an individual’s mood.
Bonila, Denise M., and Levy, Beth, Eds. The Power of the Press. H. W. Wilson, 1999.
(Jensen, 2005, p. 69) could be compared with the importance of desired moral reasoning. The
How do people behave when they face a number of chances to cheat with little or no risk of exposure? In this summary I will present the results of 4 studies made to determine whether or not people take advance of opportunities to cheat. This experiment is important to companies and institutions to know more about their employees and/or students’ behaviors when exposed to situations when they can or have a chance to cheat, if most institutions understand the behavior related to cheating and opportunities to so do, they can be more prepared to avoid this type of situations, and eventually to catch them.
Milgram found that people would go to extremes of irrational behaviour when ordered to do so by an authority figure who told them to do so. In his original study he found that 65% of ppts would carry on to the give the full 450 volt electric shock when ordered to do so by the authority figure. However Milgram’s study is hard to generalise because he only used white males in his study so we cannot generalise this findings to different ethnicities or different genders because they may behave differently to those in the Milgram experiment. Milgram’s agency theory can also explain such behaviour because they could be in the agentic state. Perhaps, the people who are stealing such goods suffer from moral strain, because they may realise that what they are doing is wrong but won’t stop such behaviour because they are in the agentic state and consequently carrying out the wishes of an authority
The very idea of controlling society through the threat of punishment lends itself to a society plagued by negative reinforcement. However, this is a necessary step in some social circles where respective citizens may not have had a proper upbringing or simply chose not to respond by learning from their proper upbringing. As the journal article states, it is fairly common practice to spend a considerable amount of money in not only punishing wrongdoers, but threatening society of the risks of wrongdoing as a preventative measure (Wright, Caspi, Moffit, & Paternoster, 2004, p. 2, para. 1). The answers derived in the journal are that everyone responds the same to sanction threats, the motivation of crimes outweigh the threats for some criminals,
In “Reporting the News” by George C. Edwards III, Martin P. Wattenberg, and Robert L. Lineberry, the main idea is how the media determines what to air, where to get said stories that will air, how the media presents the news, and the medias effect on the general public. “Reporting The News” is a very strong and detailed article. The authors’ purpose is to inform the readers of what goes on in the news media. This can be inferred by the authors’ tone. The authors’ overall tone is critical of the topics that are covered. The tone can be determined by the authors’ strong use of transitions, specific examples, and phrases or words that indicate analysis. To summarize, first, the authors’ indicate that the media chooses its stories that will air
The Moral Life Of Babies, from the New York Times is an article describing multiple studies on babies done to measure infant cognition. These studies were done in hopes of determining if babies had and used any senses of morality. It was shown that humans do have some sort of sense of morality at the very start of life. It is thought that some sense of good and evil are bred into the babies. The studies showed that babies have an understanding of mental life, they know right from wrong, how people should behave and how they should react to certain situations. Since it was not known if babies reacted certain ways to deliberately be moral, moral-baby experiments were done. Moral-baby experiments used two kinds of actions to study babies; the action of helping or hindering. The studies were originally done to study babies social interactions, but also showed latent moral content. The studies consisted of geometrical objects that demonstrated acts of helping or hindering other shapes get up and down a hill. The babies were later asked to pick between the geometrical objects. Most of the babies preferred the helping objects over the hindering objects. This showed that babies prefer good guys over bad guys and know right from wrong. Another similar study was done using animal puppets, having them help each other open a box, or deliberately close the box on each other. This study also showed that babies have a general understanding of good and bad behavior. This research showed that babies have moral instincts and emotional reactions. It is believed that babies are born with moral foundations, biologically engineered inside us as infants, only to acquire more information to shape our views and beliefs from our culture. Three-month olds s...
The media has changed significantly over the past decades. Technology has modified our abilities to expand our communication network, and it allows companies to spread their commercials over many different continents. Research done by Roberts (1993) shows that adolescent and children are often very influenced by media that involves sexual or violent conduct. This research is based on media involving children and adolescents, however this does not eliminate the effect media has on adults (Singer & Singer, 2001, p. 269).
Television is a vital source from which most Americans receive information. News and media delegates on television have abused theirs powers over society through the airing of appealing news shows that misinform the public. Through literary research and experimentation, it has been proven that people's perception of reality has been altered by the information they receive from such programs. Manipulation, misinterpretation, word arrangement, picture placement and timing are all factors and tricks that play a major role in the case. Research, experimentation, and actual media coverage has pinpointed actual methods used for deceptive advertising. Television influences society in many ways. People are easily swayed to accept a belief that they may not normally have unless expressed on television, since many people think that everything they hear on television is true. This, however, is not always the case. It has been observed that over the past twenty to thirty years, normal social behavior, even actual life roles of men and women and media, regulatory policies have all been altered (Browne 1998). Media has changed with time, along with quality and respectability. Many Americans receive and accept false information that is merely used as an attention grabber that better the show's ratings and popularity. Many magazines and Journal reviews have periodically discussed the "muckraking" that many tabloid shows rely on to draw in their viewers. This involves sensationalizing a story to make it more interesting, therefore increasing the interest of the audience. "Along the way, all sorts of scandalous substance and goofy tricks appear, but not much mystery in the logic," (Garnson 1997). People often know that these shows aim to deceive them, but still accept the information as truth. Many times, people have strong opinions on certain topics. Yet, when they are exposed to the other side of the argument, they may be likely to agree with the opposite view. As Leon Festinger said, "If I chose to do it (or say it), I must believe in it," (Myers 1997). This is an example of Festinger's cognitive dissonance theory, which pertains to acting contrary to our beliefs. Television influences many people to change their original beliefs. It has the viewers think that the majority of other people hold the contrary idea. Once these views are presented, people have the option to hol...
An argument can be made that Journalism is one of the very few professions in the world of media that is handled with some sort of dignity and pride. After reading “The Elements of Journalism” by Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel, I realized how important journalism is to each and every one of us. Whether you’re a writer or a reader, the back and forth exchange between provider and consumer is extremely important in pushing society forward. Journalism after all is designed to challenge society, promote new ideas and spark conversation between one another. Despite the positives of journalism, there are issues that exist within the profession that cannot be excused and cannot be ignored.
In Bandura’s Bobo Doll experiment, performed in the 1960’s by Dr. Albert Bandura, showed the children a video of an adult hitting, punching, kicking and, moreover general aggression towards the doll. While another group of children viewed an adult, being gentle with the Bobo doll and a control group in which there was no influence towards the doll. Because Dr. Bandura used isolated groups and used unique methods with each group, his research, classified as an experiment as he was manipulating a factor, which was the type of attitude shown to the Bobo doll that the children watched (Myers, 2014). In the begging of the study, there were 72 children, 36 boys and 36 girls, observed at the Stanford University and tested for aggressive behavior
This study took place on a Sunday afternoon on the Harvard quad. The general population involved in the experiment seemed to be a...