Everyday Research Methods

"This is how social media affects your brain"

My vacation photo didn't get very many "likes." According to the study, what region of my brain might be responding (less) to this number?

Journalists love to write headlines about how something "affects the brain." CNN's recent splash, "Teens, this is how social media affects your brain" is a good example. Can the study they report really support the causal claim that social media affects your brain? Let's check it out. Here's one of the journalist's ominous opening sentences

Social media has become second nature -- but what impact is this having on our brain?

This line implies that social media might even damage the teenage brain...but does it? Let's read on. The journalist is reviewing several aspects of the study in this article, but I will focus only on the main claim. Here's the journalist's description: 

In a recent study, researchers at the UCLA brain mapping center used an fMRI scanner to image the brains of 32 teenagers as they used a bespoke social media app resembling Instagram. By watching the activity inside different regions of the brain as the teens used the app, the team found certain regions became activated by "likes", with the brain's reward center becoming especially active.

"When teens learn that their own pictures have supposedly received a lot of likes, they show significantly greater activation in parts of the brain's reward circuitry," says lead author Lauren Sherman. "This is the same group of regions responding when we see pictures of a person we love or when we win money."

The teenagers were shown more than 140 images where 'likes' were believed to from their peers, but were in fact assigned by the research team.

 

Scans revealed that the nucleus accumbens, a part of the brain's reward circuitry, was especially active when teens saw a large number of likes on their own photos, which could inspire them to use social media more often.

 (In the text's Chapter 5, fMRI is described as a physiological measure. As participants engage in tasks in an MRI scanner, the machine detects changes in brain activity, which are then analyzed by a computer, resulting in an estimate of which brain regions are more active.)

Questions

1. Like many fMRI studies, this one uses a repeated measures experimental design. See if you can guess what the study's independent (IV) and dependent variables (DV) would have been. 
2. Assuming this was a repeated measures design, how might the researchers have controlled for order effects? 
3. The journalist makes a broad causal claim here, "Social media affects your brain." What is a more specific causal claim that the experiment in this study might be able to support?
   
4. Assuming the study did follow the repeated-measures design we assumed in Question 1, can the study support this causal claim? Apply the three causal criteria.

 

 

Suggested answers

   1. We know that the study's participants viewed 140 Instagram photos while lying in an MRI scanner. Some of the photos received a lot of likes (assigned by the experimenter), and some received fewer. Therefore, the independent variable was probably the number of "likes" received by a photo (high vs. low), and the dependent variable can be described as "level of activity in the nucleus accumbens" 

2. The journalist indicates that people saw 140 photos that varied on the number of likes they had received. To control for order effects, we'd want to be sure that the researchers presented the photos in different orders for each person. In addition, we'd also want to be sure that the number of likes assigned to each photo was not confounded with the contents of the photos. It would be a problem, for example, if photos with people in them had been assigned more "likes" than photos of landscapes. The researchers should be sure that likes were assigned regardless of photo content. 

3. Instead of the general statement, "social media affects your brain," it is more specific to say, "viewing Instagram photos that have received more likes causes more activity in the nucleus accumbens." 

4. Yes, the study probably can support this causal claim. The study reported covariance, because the nucleus accumbens was shown to be more active, on average, when viewing photos that had received more "likes" compared to photos that had received fewer "likes." Because the researchers manipulated how many likes the photos received, the study establishes temporal precedence--people saw the likes first, and then their nucleus accumbens activity was measured directly after. Finally, if we assume that the  researchers controlled for order effects and potential confounds (see question 2, above), internal validity would have been established, as well. 

Coda

It is certainly exciting to read that researchers have identified a specific region that is active when people like a teen's Instagram photos. But keep in mind that Instagram is not necessarily special. Neuroscientists would assert that every interaction we have with the world--talking to friends, listening to music, drinking a coffee--"affects" our brain. Would a well-liked Instagram photo get more nucleus accumbens activity than these pleasant activities? Future research might be able to tell us. 

You can read the original journal article on which this study is based by visiting the journal, Psychological Science.

 

 

Engagement with Disney Princesses

The study's results showed that the more children were engaged with Disney Princess media, the more they adhered to stereotypically female play later on. Photo: Shutterstock

There's a lot to think about in a recent study on Disney Princess Media. The study was covered by the Huffington Post here, and by another source in Oregon.  (You'll find other press coverage if you search for it).  The study illustrates some of the concepts in Chapter 8 and 9.

Let's point out the causal claims made by the journalists first. The Huffington Post journalist's headline reads:

Disney Princesses May Impact Gender Stereotypes For Girls (But Not Boys), Study Finds

And the Oregon paper's headline reads:

Disney 'princess culture' damaging to young girls, study says

Did you notice the causal verbs, "impact" and "damaging"? That's probably inappropriate, because this was a correlational study. In the first paragraph, the HuffPo journalist continues the dramatic causal language: 

Brigham Young University family life professor Sarah M. Coyne conducted a study with 198 preschoolers, both male and female, to rank their interaction with Disney Princess culture — including toys and movies — and how that affected their behavior one year later with reports from parents and teachers. 

a) Look back at that quote and find the verb that makes the causal claim. 

 

Now let's talk about the moderator in the headline, Disney Princesses May Impact Gender Stereotypes For Girls (But Not Boys).

b) This headline describes a moderator. Review what you learned about moderators in Chapter 8. What is the core relationship in this example (what are the two core variables)? And what is the moderator variable? How would you sketch this headline in a table or figure? 

 

Now, here are some more points made about the study, quoted from the Oregon news source:

Linder and her co-authors found that 96 percent of girls and 87 percent of boys had taken in some form of princess culture. Roughly 61 percent of girls reported playing with a princess doll in the last week, but only 4 percent of boys said they had played with the dolls.

When the subjects were examined a year after the initial analysis, both girls and boys who played with the dolls showed an increased likelihood to adhere to female gender stereotypes, a fact that could prove especially problematic for girls, said Sara Coyne, a co-author of the study and professor of family life at Brigham Young University.

Here's how the HuffPo journalist described this part of the results:

For both boys and girls, greater interactions with princesses predicted more gender-normative behavior — like wanting to play with traditional female stereotypical toys and activities (e.g., dolls, tea sets, playing house), and behaviors (e.g., avoiding getting dirty, avoiding taking risks)

c) What are the variables in this study, as described above? Are they measured or manipulated? And given your answer, does that make the study correlational or experimental? Did you notice that the design is longitudinal? (What signaled you to that?) Which design in Chapter 9 does this design seem closest to? 

d) Now, do these descriptions of the results actually show a relationship between Disney Princess media and gender-normative behavior that is different for boys and girls, as the one headline suggested? 

 

OK. If the relationship between Disney culture and stereotypical behavior was actually the same for boys and girls, where did the moderator in the headline come from? Turns out that when the researcher was interviewed about the results, she indicated that the gender stereotypes could, in the future, lead to different outcomes for boys and girls. Therefore, the moderator in the headline came more from the researcher's discussion than from the study itself. The researcher said, for example:

"We know that girls who strongly adhere to female gender stereotypes feel like they can't do some things," she told the university's news site. "They're not as confident that they can do well in math and science. They don't like getting dirty, so they're less likely to try and experiment with things."

And for boys:

The effects of princess culture were less troubling for boys, the authors said, as more stereotypically feminine behavior could serve as a counterbalance to the hyper-masculine superhero culture many young boys take in on a daily basis.

 

If your college or university subscribes to the journal, Child Development,you can see the full report of the study and learn more about the full pattern of results!