You find yourself in the experimental chemistry lab at Princeton University. Everyone around you is working hard, doing cool stuff. There are machines that surely must cost more than your house, whirring and blinking and transferring data to several nearby computers. You are impressed by the smart, white lab coats, and the ease with which they communicate about substances and processes whose names easily top 10 syllables. In the corner, someone has made a liquid glow. In another, someone has generated purple fire.
Is there anything science can’t do?
An older man approaches you, and you two start to chat. He is very composed, but you can see the glint in his eye, the hidden excitement from his latest preliminary findings. He tells you this new serum he has developed will shatter conceptions about what is and is not possible in psychiatric medicine. One sip, he says, and 100% of his experimental lab rats have shown an obliteration of anxious symptoms. You express interest, as you have been struggling with a panic disorder for the past several years.
“Don’t just take my word for it,” he says, handing you a beaker. “Try it!”
Outside the Lab
Now, in real life, my little scenario would never happen. Science has strict policies of what can and cannot be done in experiments, even when it comes to lab rats, and especially when it comes to humans. Said scientist would be fired from the university and excommunicated from academia on the spot, at the very least.
But let’s consider a different setting.
You are on Facebook. It’s been a long day, and you are scrolling leisurely through the feeds, looking for something vaguely interesting.
…A cure for anxiety? In 100% of cases?
It sounds like a dream, right? Anxiety disorders are rampant. 12% of all adults will exhibit diagnosable social anxiety some time during their lives, 9% generalized anxiety disorder, and 1 in 20 will face the unholy mother of all anxiety disorders: panic disorder.
Wouldn’t the world be a thousand times better if these problems could be obliterated?
I thought so. And so I clicked the link.
Go ahead! You can click it too!
The article:
The video: (I recommend this over the article, only 1 min. 30 sec.) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RIoQARGLY8o&list=PLIzBdOdHTAFLziOezLeFagEfB6VJJS71G
What do you know?
Now, step back with me for a moment. I’m going to bring up the chemistry lab again.
What do you know about the situation?
You are in a respected Ivy League university (Princeton!). Everyone is looking, talking, and acting the part of incredibly well-educated scientists.
And…in the end…that’s about it.
You do not know the man offering you the serum. You don’t even know the chemical name of said serum, not that it would mean anything to the majority of us anyway. You have no proof, other than his confidence, that this will work. It has been tested on rats, you may say. Yes, rats. Not humans. And did you notice the word “preliminary” that I threw in there?
And so…do you drink it?
And ask yourself the next question: what do you know about the psychological study?
A doctor (of science) published an article in the New England Journal of Medicine. A lovely lady, a professor from Princeton, explains this miracle cure. Everyone is looking, talking, and acting the part of incredibly well-educated scientists.
…And so I ask, do you drink this serum?
Academic Humility and Critical Thinking – Two Missing Variables from Facebook Psychological Science
Now, I am an undergraduate studying psychology. This semester I will finish all the courses needed for my major. …And that’s where my qualifications abruptly end.
And I am challenging professors fromPrinceton?
Yes.
Yes I am. I consider it my academic duty.
I will tell you why I do. And why you should too.
I fully recognize that even though I may be more educated than most about psychology, I know full well that what I do not know far outweighs what I do know. They say the mark of a good education is to know how little you know. This is called academic humility. It is sorely missing among scientists and laypeople alike.
I admit right now, up front, that I could be wrong. I am intentionally writing this article describing my preliminary concerns, without researching it further. Maybe this is a breakthrough that I and millions of others have been searching for.
But here is the point I beg of you to consider.
THINK FOR YOURSELF!!!!!
Facebook is a TERRIBLE psychology teacher. I have reacted with everything from tears of disgust to hysterical laughter at the drivel that I see posted every day. I see everything from half-truths, to outright lies, and an occasional (and I do meanoccasional) gem.
Psychological science is around you every day. You have a right to enjoy the best of it. It can enrich lives. Unfortunately, you must sift through the thousand lies to get to the true, life changing principles. Just as in any other discipline. In my experience, psychology as a science seldom is like the picture that is painted in our culture.
And so, using this article, I am going to model for you how you should ingest psychological studies. Perhaps this model will serve you well for any science.
First, take no one’s word for it. If it is the truth, it will stand to scrutiny. In fact, science thrives through scrutiny. A theory becomes stronger and stronger as it disproves doubts against it. We live in an online world where anyone can claim to be a professor, or have news from the APA (see later in the article for proof). You do not know who wrote that study.
Second, look honestly at what you know. If you know nothing about the topic, you should be humble enough to admit it, and take the responsibility to educate yourself from reliable sources. If you ingest all the studies on Facebook blindly, you may find that you have ingested a lot of junk.
Third, think critically. Does this make sense? Sometimes the truth doesn’t make sense, admittedly, but if a study blatantly defies everything you’ve ever been taught you should be raising your eyebrows. Again, the truth will survive scrutiny. Raising questions will kill lies and strengthen the truth. Be aware of the signs of bad science, as found below:
Fourth, you need to decide for yourself whether this study holds water. While others may offer opinions and insights, you should feel responsible enough to make your own decisions in the end. Whether well-meaning or not, misinformation is rampant in this online age. You need to be an independent consumer of knowledge.
And so, unabashedly, I present my criticism of this cure-all for anxiety. I stand where I do, knowing I may be wrong, and willing to revise my position should I find good, trustworthy truths to support it.
But at least, even if I’m wrong, I thought about it, and I’m taking a stand.
So be critical. Even be critical of me! It will seriously make me happy. This debate spurs on the investigation that is at the very heart of the scientific method.
Red Flags in the Study
1. 100% Success Rate
This was the first red flag. In psychology especially, you never see experimental results like this. Every person’s brain is literally wired differently, meaning every treatment will work (or not work) a different way. Think of the most popular psychological treatments you know: medications or therapy styles alike. They are not 100% effective. Neither, for that matter, is almost anything in medicine, which is a much more scientifically structured field than psychology. Psychological scientists cry for joy if they reach 50-60% in a study. Milgram’s infamous obedience study, with numbers that rocked everyone’s world, stood at 65% compliance. Remember, we are dealing with the mind, the most perplexing and complicated organ in the body, and perhaps one of the greatest mysteries in the world. Psychology is seldom, if ever, that simple. Someone, and often multiple someones, always stand out.
2. Ethical Concerns
Without trying to point fingers, I honestly ask, was this study approved by an IRB (a board that decrees, before an experiment even starts, if it is ethical to proceed)? Submitting subjects who were already mentally ill to such intense “torture” (her word, not mine) for 3-6 hours a day? Doesn’t that worry anybody just the least bit?
3. How Anxiety Works
My first thought upon hearing this cure was this: anxious people already do that. It is calledrumination, dwelling on the worst case scenarios obsessively. It is documented to have unhealthy side effects. So I ask, does taking something they already do that is harmful, and just making it worse and intentional, really solve anything?
In addition, for many people suffering from anxiety, such thinking could very well trigger a panic attack. These are not a joking matter. People are hospitalized for them, and frequently cite them as the worst events in their lives. So, I imagine, in the study, at least a few of these popped up. What do you do then? Do you tell them to think through it? (impossible, from personal experience). In addition, it has also been documented that people avoid scenarios in which they have previously had a panic attack, which does not bode well for the scientist who needs continued participation to produce a cure.
4. Why does it work?
In Abnormal Psychology, we were discussing ECT (electroconvulsive therapy), which is literally running an electrical current through the brain, inducing a seizure (see the word “convulsive” in there?) to treat depression. Think A Beautiful Mind, though procedures have improved significantly. In my text, it says that it remains controversial because we don’t know why it works.
I thought this was rubbish. If it works, why does it matter how?
Now I know. It can prevent future problems.
Why does this intense rumination work? I can think of one possible explanation from my limited education in the area. GAS, or General Adaptation Syndrome, explains how people deal with chronic stress. Long story short, the last phase is calledexhaustion, where the body loses its capacity to deal with the stress, and as a result, shuts down in many devastating ways, including but not limited to compromising the immune system. Prolonged, intense stress produces effects that spread outside the purely psychological realm.
If, indeed, this cure works because you are exhausting your body’s capacity to deal with stress, I’m not so sure we should be doing that.
5. It’s just like CBT…
This was one criticism I heard in favor of this new therapy. But really, let’s look at the core ideas.
CBT (cognitive-behavioral therapy) is focused on attacking anxious thoughts by rationally dismantling them. It takes thoughts that are blown out of control and reduces them down to size. For example, the ever-present “No one likes me”. The therapist encourages the person to think of everyone in their lives, even gather their own evidence. Parents. Friends. Family. The hope is that a person will be able to prove to themselves the real truth, and thus will eliminate the anxiety. Note: eliminate the anxiety, not intensify it.
6. How long must it go on?
She says “after 3 to 6 hours, you can go on enjoying the rest of your day”. 3 to 6 hours of rumination a day? Who has 3 to 6 hours to daily torture themselves? And remember, “torture” is her own word, not mine.
It’s bad enough if you need it once. Maybe it would be worth it if you only had to do it once, to secure a lifetime free of anxiety. But she does not specify that. How often is this necessary? When a new stress comes up (an often daily occurrence), do you have to do it over again? How many hours a week, a month, over a lifetime must you spend doing this to be free?
When the Internet is Blatantly Wrong: The Case of Selfitis
A few weeks ago, I discovered another disturbingly false post on Facebook. Apparently, the APA declared a new disorder, Selfitis, which was the compulsive taking and posting of selfies. The day it came out, I found this on no less than 5 websites, in my cursory surveying. There were probably more.
When I saw it on Facebook, not only didmultiple people post it, but all the comments were supportive.
“I know so many people who need psychiatric help!”
“I believe it.”
“I have Selfitis, and I need help! But after I take a selfie, lol ;)”
Look at the original source article yourself.
Apparently, no one did their homework. Many news sites were reposting this, without even reading the mission statement of the Abodo Chronicles (http://adobochronicles.com/about/):
“THE ADOBO CHRONICLES is your source of up-to-date, unbelievable news. Everything you read on this site is based on fact, except for the lies…Why the title, “The Adobo Chronicles,” you might ask? Well, adobo is the national dish of our home country. You see, adobo is usually made with pork or chicken, boiled and simmered in a mixture of vinegar, soy sauce and other spices. When writing stories for this blog,we let the news sizzle and simmer in our mind in a mixture of fact and fiction, then we spice it up with figments of our imagination.” (emphasis added)
This is a joke website, published as social satire, and it was adopted as fact in a snap.
Thankfully, the error has been corrected, from my recent review of Google, anyway. The true story, including the study that was blown out of proportion, can be found here:http://www.policymic.com/articles/86981/doctors-supposedly-made-selfitis-a-mental-disorder-here-s-the-real-story
And so, I beg you, be a wise consumer of Facebook science. Be humble about your own knowledge, and take responsibility for your education.
Again, I wrote this as an initial reaction to the study, so you could see my thought processes. I fully intend to study more, including looking up the original article.
Maybe I’m wrong. Actually, I kind of hope I am. Millions struggle and need help with their anxiety. Maybe this is what we've been looking for.
…Or, maybe it’s an unfounded fad, or even a construed lie.
Just do your homework before you drink it up.
