SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
A rather limited study by neuroscientist Dr. Tara Swart of brain patterns in 40 volunteer journalist subjects seems to show a prevalence of lack of emotional self-control, as well as lower than average problem-solving skills, among other deficiencies. High blood levels of cortisol were significant.
The headline conclusion reached is that journalists are undoubtedly subject to a range of pressures at work and home, but the meaning and purpose they attribute to their work contributes to helping them remain mentally resilient despite this. Nevertheless, there are areas for improvement, including drinking more water and reducing alcohol and caffeine consumption to increase executive functioning and improve recovery during sleep.
[...] As a group, the journalists also exhibited lower executive functioning scores than the average person, indicating a lower than average ability to regulate emotions, suppress biases, solve complex problems, switch between tasks, and think flexibly and creatively. It is likely that the levels of caffeine/alcohol and the lack of water consumed contributed to the low scores recorded for executive functioning because of the severe impact of dehydration on cognitive ability.
Read the study here: TaraSwart.com [PDF]
[ n1: This is not a peer reviewed study. It was launched in association with the London Press Club, and the objective was to determine how journalists can thrive under stress. Tara Swart is a Senior Lecturer at MIT Sloan, she holds a BsC in Biomedical Science and PhD in Neuropharmacology from Kings College London, and a BM BcH in Medicine from Oxford University. ]
(Score: 1, Troll) by Bobs on Sunday May 21 2017, @01:24AM (2 children)
There is nothing of significance e that can be learned from this.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 21 2017, @01:29AM
No control group either.
(Score: 2) by Bobs on Sunday May 21 2017, @05:35AM
I got marked as a troll above for saying this study has no statistical significance.
Let me explain, no let me sum up:
Among other problems, with only 21 self-selecting people in the study, you can get compelling results like;
- Journalists have an average of 1.857 testicles!
- 100% of journalist think Rupert Murdoch is a great boss!
- 100% of journalists are red-heads.
- 95.23% of journalists graduated high school in the 1990's.
- Almost all Journalists go bra-less.
- Journalists have higher levels of estrogen than the general population.
- 100% of journalists watched an episode of Dr Who within the last 72-hours.
- 100% of journalists use smartphones running IOS 10.3.7.
With such a small, self-selected set you can easily come up with answers for the 'team'
that don't apply to the larger group of 'all' journalists.
The error bars are huge on this.
And, if you try to reproduce the results with another set of 21 journalists, odds are you will come up with a different collection of outcomes for that small sample.
So no reproducibility.
This doesn't qualify as science / scientific.
There are a number of other, more jargon filled problems with this but I have already spent more time thinking about this study than the author.
'There are three degrees of lying:
Lies, damn lies, and statistics. "