Activities That Have Psychological Effects on Individuals - Essay Example

ESSAY: PSYCHOLOGY Outline of the studies in the Articles Question The two research studies provide adequate information about the researches carried out on different activities that have psychological and physical effects on individuals. The Monster Article clearly illustrates that emotional eating is not only for the depressed nor the gloomy but also for those who are happy to make them feel good and maintain their good moods for most of the time.as noted, people mostly university students believed in case one is not in good mood, one regains the mood by eating. The research however concluded that food should never be used to determine one’s emotional or psychological state (Wade & Tavris 2000). On the obesity in children, the research illustrates that obesity lowers self-esteem among children most especially those falling below the age of 10 years. The girls feel lowly grated among their peers and age groups. On the eating habits, it is noted that family activities such as watching television meal times have serious effects on the children and it determines the amount of food taken (Elliot & Place 2002. The article on fighting Anorexia outlines vividly the causes of anorexia and their effects on the general public. Anorexia is regarded as a mental illness caused by too much obsession to food that is accompanied by acute anxiety to gain weight. The research also outlines vividly how the instances of Anorexia have greatly reduced among the young children (Nyers 2004). From the above examples from the two research articles, it is true to believe that the two researches provide adequate details that are very vital in evaluating experimental procedures. The information in the first research provides good information on how to evaluate if food can be used to determine a person’s emotions and if eating can bring joy and happiness to an individual. The article also provides information on the relationship between obesity in children and amount of food eaten by individuals. These can be used to evaluate experimental procedures in case the researcher is interested in determining the relationship that exists between the food that an individual eats and the amount of weight gain. The information on the emotional relationship with food can be used as experimental procedures if one is interested in finding out if truly food can be used to bring joy among individuals or if food affects emotional responses (Wade & Tavris 2000).. In the second article, the information can be used to for experimental procedures. The data obtained indicates that the victims of Anorexia have greatly reduced over the years. This can be used for experimental procedures to determine what led to the decline in the victims of the disease. The article can also provide information on the causes of the mental disorder. Some researcher’s holds that the mental disorder is caused by the high affinity of an individual to food and the type and amount of food taken that might impair a person’s mind (Nyers 2004). In order to proof the validity of the statement and the myth, the researcher may use that information to evaluate the experimental procedures and hence reduces the hypothetical assumptions made by some clinicians. It is important to note that for a very long time, clinicians have never had clear understanding of the cause of Anorexia and they have been relating the disease with those such as cancer and diabetes which are believed to be life threatening (Elliot & Place 2002. Question 2 In the second study, it was not very easy to manipulate the independent. The mental disorder, Anorexia, depended on the type of food one consumed and the malnourishment.The malnourishment and lack of food is the independent variable that cannot be easily manipulated but their presence could easily cause the mental disorder. The variable could not easily manipulate because the clinicians did not have a clear understanding on the main cause of the disease. This is therefore showed that they could not fully accredit that the cause of the Anorexia was the inadequate food or poor diet (Wade & Tavris 2000). This is true because from the second article, they relate the disease with some serious ailments such as cancer and diabetes and this an also indicate that they also related the causes of the two diseases and this formed the basis of their conclusion in the relationship with the two diseases. The researcher could therefore not be able to manipulate the variable which is the causes very easily since they had no strong basis of facts but what they were using were mere hypothetical assumptions (Elliot & Place 2002. The lack of the ability to manipulate a dependent variable in the research poses a problem of not drawing an accurate conclusion. This is because the conclusion is drawn not on the experimental data but merely on the hypothetical data obtained that has not been proved to be true or not. The conclusion drawn by the researcher may therefore have adverse effects on the victims. For example if a clinical officer having very little knowledge on the causes of a particular disease may administer wrong treatment. In case of researchers dealing with an independent variable that cannot be manipulated, may have difficulties in drawing conclusions on the relationship between the variables. If the wrong conclusions drawn are further used by other researchers, they become deceiving (Wade & Tavris 2000). Question 3 As a psychologist, I would prefer the study of “distracted dining” in the first article. The experimental question that I would ask is what effect does it have if an individual talks while at dining? I would become interested in determining the effects that one can have on his or her table manners when the person speaks most of the time while at the table. As a researcher, I can be interested in knowing the relation between the amounts of food eaten when at the same time the person talks over the table during meals (Nyers 2004). As a researcher, I can be interested to determine if the person eats small quantities of food, more or the right quantities that are required. I can do a follow up study by carrying out experiment on a sample of children who on most occasions talk over meal times and compare their weight if the two correspond. If they don’t correspond, then I can conclude that despite the amount of talking that one does over meal times, it does not affect the amount of food eaten measured by his weight. But if there is a relationship, most likely negative, then I can conclude that an individual’s weight can be affected by his talking habits during meal time because he will consume less amount of food as compared to others (Elliot & Place 2002). References Elliot, J., & Place, M. (2002). Children in difficulty to understanding and helping (Taylor & Fransis e-Library ed). London: Routledge Nyers, D. (2004). Psychology (7th ed.).New York: Worth Publishers Wade, C., & Tavris, C. (2000). Psychology (6th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ:Pretice Hall Read More