Researching the obvious
Reflecting on meaningful values provides biological and psychological protection from the adverse effects of stress, UCLA psychologists report in the November issue of the journal Psychological Science.
In the study, 80 UCLA undergraduates completed stressful tasks. They delivered five-minute speeches about their qualifications for an office job in front of “speech evaluators” trained to be non expressive, who would coldly tell them during pauses, “You still have time remaining. Please continue.” After a short break, they were instructed to subtract 13 from 2,083 under harassing conditions. They were told to go faster and at each mistake, they were told, “That is incorrect. Please start over from 2,083.”
Prior to these stress tests, one group of students (a randomly assigned “value affirmation” group) reflected on values they had identified in advance as especially meaningful to them, answering 10 written questions. These could have been religious values, in which case they were asked a series of questions about their religion, the Bible and God. In other cases, they reflected on meaningful secular values — such as their political beliefs or social values — answering questions about, for example, Abraham Lincoln or community service work.
From World of Psychology
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From the unsocialized part of my brain: I would like to reflect on the personal values of these UCLa psychologists who think it is reasonable to subject UCLA undergraduates to harassment and humiliation. I suggest that reflecting on some personal values may protect psychologists from the effects of empathy, interpersonal responsibility and guilt.
From the Vulcan part of my brain: This study falls in the class of psychological studies in which people get publications by doing research to prove what people already generally believe. Studies of this kind have the advantage that they are seldom challenged. Few people would seriously challenge the merits of reflecting on personal values. It would be like challenging God, motherhood, and apple pie. (There may be another study here.)
The general principle here is that studies confirming popular beliefs are protected from challenge and thus need not bother with methodological rigor (more research opportunities here.) The study, for example, was conducted on a small set of late adolescents attending UCLA (and probably enrolled in psychology classes). The study would be of little interest if it were limited to that population. But since people already believe the conclusion, there is no risk to generalizing it to everybody.
This type of study does not do much to extend knowledge, but it does get publications.
From the Networker part of my brain: People have long known that a focus on roles and responsibilities serves to control stress and emotion. Psychologists who deal in therapy, counseling, or group processes can expect to deal with hostility from clients as a result of their professional actions. They learn to maintain a professional role in the face of such stresses. Similar training is often provided to police officers, customer relations people, and others who must deal with the public under emotional conditions.
A more general principle is: People respond to stress effectively if they have previously practiced the effective course of action. That’s why we have fire drills. (Another opportunity for researching the obvious.)
In the study, 80 UCLA undergraduates completed stressful tasks. They delivered five-minute speeches about their qualifications for an office job in front of “speech evaluators” trained to be non expressive, who would coldly tell them during pauses, “You still have time remaining. Please continue.” After a short break, they were instructed to subtract 13 from 2,083 under harassing conditions. They were told to go faster and at each mistake, they were told, “That is incorrect. Please start over from 2,083.”
Prior to these stress tests, one group of students (a randomly assigned “value affirmation” group) reflected on values they had identified in advance as especially meaningful to them, answering 10 written questions. These could have been religious values, in which case they were asked a series of questions about their religion, the Bible and God. In other cases, they reflected on meaningful secular values — such as their political beliefs or social values — answering questions about, for example, Abraham Lincoln or community service work.
From World of Psychology
------
From the unsocialized part of my brain: I would like to reflect on the personal values of these UCLa psychologists who think it is reasonable to subject UCLA undergraduates to harassment and humiliation. I suggest that reflecting on some personal values may protect psychologists from the effects of empathy, interpersonal responsibility and guilt.
From the Vulcan part of my brain: This study falls in the class of psychological studies in which people get publications by doing research to prove what people already generally believe. Studies of this kind have the advantage that they are seldom challenged. Few people would seriously challenge the merits of reflecting on personal values. It would be like challenging God, motherhood, and apple pie. (There may be another study here.)
The general principle here is that studies confirming popular beliefs are protected from challenge and thus need not bother with methodological rigor (more research opportunities here.) The study, for example, was conducted on a small set of late adolescents attending UCLA (and probably enrolled in psychology classes). The study would be of little interest if it were limited to that population. But since people already believe the conclusion, there is no risk to generalizing it to everybody.
This type of study does not do much to extend knowledge, but it does get publications.
From the Networker part of my brain: People have long known that a focus on roles and responsibilities serves to control stress and emotion. Psychologists who deal in therapy, counseling, or group processes can expect to deal with hostility from clients as a result of their professional actions. They learn to maintain a professional role in the face of such stresses. Similar training is often provided to police officers, customer relations people, and others who must deal with the public under emotional conditions.
A more general principle is: People respond to stress effectively if they have previously practiced the effective course of action. That’s why we have fire drills. (Another opportunity for researching the obvious.)
posted by Selby Evans at 10:11 AM
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