5 ms·

My layman's impression from paying some attention to psych/neuroscience is that there's an increased amount of scrutiny/skepticism towards this type of study wh

by themgt 7y ago

My layman's impression from paying some attention to psych/neuroscience is that there's an increased amount of scrutiny/skepticism towards this type of study which (afaict) fails to take into account potential genetic confounding while the authors describe the discovered correlations in causal terms. We can be nearly certain that SES and TES are significantly heritable. Without accounting for that innate heritability, how can they say to what degree the outcomes are the result of circumstances/events?

RubberbandSoul 7y ago
I think they usually use twin studies to try to compensate for heritability but I couldn't find any mention of it in the article.
- sambe 7y ago
  I think they usually _don’t_ use twin studies because they are harder/more expensive. In this case they used the Philadelphia Neurodevelopmental Cohort: https://www.med.upenn.edu/bbl/philadelphianeurodevelopmentalcohort.html https://www.med.upenn.edu/bbl/philadelphianeurodevelopmental... I don’t see any mention of twins here or on JAMA, although I can’t access the full text currently.
ordu 7y ago
This article even worse then just correlational research. It doesn't say anything new what you couldn't guess in advance. When speaking about psychological research describing correlations and saying nothing new, it is a sign of zero scientific value of the article. Not really zero, because a confirmation of the common tribal knowledge have its value, but not much. There are questions I'd like to ask and to know answers. For example, how the parenting style affects post-effects of adversities in a childhood. Is it possible to overcome negative impact with a parenting style? Maybe it is possible to get all the good effects (like faster development of a child) while avoiding bad ones? Is there a link between parenting style and adversities? If it is a causal link than what direction it have? How the direction of a link affects development of a child? Did adversities led child to feel himself not like his peers and if they did, what the impact it had? Maybe if we gather children with a similar issues and show them that they are not alone it would help? Or maybe it is better to keep child in a diverse environment? Does the answer depends on a kind of adversity? These questions are the first that came to my mind. I could pose a few more if I thought a little longer. But the article doesn't try to answer these question, it just states the stupid correlation which anyone know without any article.

by themgt 7y ago

RubberbandSoul 7y ago

I think they usually use twin studies to try to compensate for heritability but I couldn't find any mention of it in the article.

sambe 7y ago
I think they usually _don’t_ use twin studies because they are harder/more expensive. In this case they used the Philadelphia Neurodevelopmental Cohort: https://www.med.upenn.edu/bbl/philadelphianeurodevelopmentalcohort.html https://www.med.upenn.edu/bbl/philadelphianeurodevelopmental... I don’t see any mention of twins here or on JAMA, although I can’t access the full text currently.

ordu 7y ago

This article even worse then just correlational research. It doesn't say anything new what you couldn't guess in advance. When speaking about psychological research describing correlations and saying nothing new, it is a sign of zero scientific value of the article. Not really zero, because a confirmation of the common tribal knowledge have its value, but not much. There are questions I'd like to ask and to know answers. For example, how the parenting style affects post-effects of adversities in a childhood. Is it possible to overcome negative impact with a parenting style? Maybe it is possible to get all the good effects (like faster development of a child) while avoiding bad ones? Is there a link between parenting style and adversities? If it is a causal link than what direction it have? How the direction of a link affects development of a child? Did adversities led child to feel himself not like his peers and if they did, what the impact it had? Maybe if we gather children with a similar issues and show them that they are not alone it would help? Or maybe it is better to keep child in a diverse environment? Does the answer depends on a kind of adversity? These questions are the first that came to my mind. I could pose a few more if I thought a little longer. But the article doesn't try to answer these question, it just states the stupid correlation which anyone know without any article.