PSY 496 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Publication Bias, Impact Factor
Document Summary
3 types of exaggeration studied: advice that was not indicated by the scientific study (40%) , stronger claims than were indicated in the article(33% ), and directly relating findings to humans when the studies were not done on humans(36%) Accidentally get too excited about the study they have been working on. Press officer may rely too heavily on the researcher for info. Found there was no significant difference in news coverage of hyped vs non-hyped press. A lot of science stories are sourced directly from the press release. Press releases are sanitized and overly positive, unlike real science. Goals of a journalist when writing an article: May occur from the scientist or the press release. Study found that only 10-20% of exaggerations were caused by journalists. Things that a(cid:396)e al(cid:396)ead(cid:455) ne(cid:449)s(cid:449)o(cid:396)th(cid:455) don"t need to (cid:271)e e(cid:454)agge(cid:396)ated. Press releases may add causal reasons for correlations- (cid:271)ut (cid:272)o(cid:396)(cid:396)elation doesn"t e(cid:395)ual (cid:272)ausation. Need to do scientific study to find causation.
