Research Psychology and the Popular Media: Is There Any Common Ground

1
Research Psychology and the Popular Media Is
There Any Common Ground?

• Richard Harris
• Cognitive Open Seminar
• February 16, 2007

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Scientific Literacy

• Quality of science education lower than other
  areas
• Number of students interested in science falling
• Popular misunderstandings of science
• Evolution/ creationism
• just a theory
• Confusion of what constitutes scientific evidence
• Effects of media violence
• 1990-2005 research showing stronger causal link
• Popular press (and opinion) shows weaker link
• Prevalence of violent crime
• 1990-2005 rates fell sharply, but most people
  believe they rose sharply
• 400 increase in coverage of murders in 1990s

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Problems

• Nature and quality of science education
• Not what well focus on today
• How to present findings of scientific research
  to the public
• Responsibility of
• The scientist
• The journalist
• Scientists receive NO training in talking to
  press and no professional reward for doing so
• Even sanctions or scorn
• Particularly crucial in program emphasizing
  applications

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Science and the Media

• After schooling, media are the source of most
  scientific information for more of the public
• How scientific reporting can be wrong
• Bias in selection of information to report
• Errors of omission
• Misrepresentation of data
• Inappropriate conclusions
• Title as mini-editorial
• Imprecise language e.g., X was partially brain
  dead for 2 days
• Miss the real storye.g., stories about hours in
  classroom

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Sources of research reporter conflict

• Researchers truth vs. reporters news
• Journalists search for fairness in breadth of
  topic
• E.g., story about psychic contacting the dead
  through dreams ran last week therefore, topic of
  sleep has been covered and were not interested
  in a story about neuroscience research on sleep
  this week
• Journalist search for balanceneed to present
  both sidesgt fringe positions given undeserved
  legitimacy
• E.g., media violence, evolution, pseudoscientific
  therapies

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What makes a story newsworthy

• Focus on person
• Interview format
• Person as hook for story
• E.g., consumer in store, senior citizen confused
  by Medicare
• Presence of drama, conflict
• Conflict, violence, divisiveness?more coverage
• Specific event
• Novel or deviant
• Relation to ongoing themes
• or why some things get news coverage and
  others dont

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Language issues between science and media

• Psychologists (and scientists in general) taught
  to be.
• Very cautious
• Qualify conclusions
• Impersonal
• Precision of language

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Language differences

• To the academician, the language of the reporter
  is excessively casual, trivializing, and
  simple-minded, if not downright wrong or silly.
  To the journalist, the language of the
  academicians is excessively passive, technical,
  and complicated, if not downright wordy or
  pompous Academic language strives to be
  informative and accurateTo the reporter, though,
  the result sounds like nit-picking it encumbers
  the research with so many qualifications and
  exceptions that the results seem meaningless
  (Tavris, 1986, p. 25)

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What the public thinks of as psychology
(Stanovich)

• I. Freud
• Neo-Freudians (Jung, Adler, Fromm, Erikson)
• II. Skinner
• Rats, mind control
• III. Parapsychology
• A. Over 50 of public believes in, almost no
  psychologists do
• B. Little psychological research in ESP now but
  has been in past
• C. Controlled research shows NO EVIDENCE of ESP
• better the research is controlled, the smaller
  the effect
• frequent failure to consider base rates of
  coincidences

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• IV. Self-help literature
• A. Most not written by psychologists and not
  respected by psychologists
• B. No quality control
• C. Geared toward solving specific problems (lose
  weight, get rich, get a partner)
• D. New therapies mostly warmed-over Freud
  (e.g.,inner child, TA)
• E. Much of it recipe knowledge--Do this and that
  will happen
• very different from serious psychological
  research

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• V. TV talk shows
• A. Behavioral issues presented in totally
  nonscientific way
• B. Veneer of education lends some respectability
• C. Bottom line all commercial TV must be
  entertaining--to get audience for advertisers
• D. Respectable, cautious scientists rarely quoted
  because they are too tentative
• Most popular media psychologists have no
  respect in field
• E. Dr. Phil --Therapy as entertainment (cf. Dear
  Abby)

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Is some blame due to psychologists?

• A. Few reputable psychologists seriously try to
  communicate to public
• B. Few rewards for popularizing psychology-- even
  criticism and ridicule
• C. Some areas (e.g., psychotherapy--Dawes, 1994)
  less interested in careful scientific evaluation
  than in protecting their turf, etc.
• Evaluation research shows credentialing does not
  lead to better therapy but this is ignored by the
  field
• APA/APS split late 1980s
• Split between clinical/counseling psychologists
  and others
• Recovered memory controversy made things worse

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Other sources of resistance to scientific
psychology

• A. Conflict of interests
• 1. Economic interests of pseudoscience
• more spent on medical quackery (10B) than
  medical research
• 2. Money of food industries, tobacco, NRA, etc.
• B. Moral/philosophical objections
• 1. Belief that science dehumanizes experience or
  deprives it of meaning (e.g., reductionism
  concerns)
• 2. Belief that psychology leaves no room for
  religion
• Psychology says nothing about accuracy of
  religious belief
• Goals of psychology very consistent with
  Judaeo-Christian values
• Many psychologists very religious

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What researchers can do

• Communicate better to public what we do
• Be willing to talk to pressseek out
  opportunities
• Learn how to talk to press
• Respect and reward scholars who communicate well
  to press

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• The scientifically justified conservatism of
  psychologists does not make a story. But
  justified or not, the void does not remain a void
  for long. Into it rush self-help gurus and
  psychic charlatans who, bursting forth on TV and
  radio talk shows, become associated with
  psychology in the public mind. In short,
  conservatism backfires. By exercising proper
  scientific caution in presenting the results of
  research to the public, psychology helps to
  create an image for itself that subsequently
  leads to its devaluation by both the public and
  other scientists. This, then, is the double
  whammy, and there seems to be no easy way for
  psychology to avoid it. (K. Stanovich)