PSA from a Psych Major

If there is one thing that I had drilled into my head as a psychology major, it was the information that I am putting in this blog post. To the point where I was tired of hearing it. But as I read my Facebook news feed these days, I understand why my professors felt the need to drill this into my head because it truly is important when we look at the difference between research and anecdotes. So here I am attempting to share this important lesson with you.

**NOTE** The"research" in this post is entirely made up and purposefully absurd. It is my hope that you will be able to translate the points of this post to current events, but I did not choose to use those as my example in an attempt to avoid preconceived notions about who I might be speaking to in this post (especially since this applies across numerous sides of many arguments).

1. Research deals in generalities and cannot be applied to specific people or situations. For example, say there was a research study that said that people who frequently eat turkey sleep more than people who never eat turkey (you know - due to the tryptophan). From that research, it cannot be presumed that Turkey Eating Tina sleeps more than Vegetarian Vicki. Research is necessarily a generality, and generalities are tendencies that are seen in the larger population. They are not rules that can be applied to specific people. Therefore Turkey Eating Tina may or may not sleep more than Vegetarian Vicki. The research does not tell us the answer to that question - only Tina and Vicki's sleep habits can. Likewise...

2. Anecdotes neither prove nor disprove a research study. It follows that if research cannot be applied to specific people or situations, neither can specific people or situations prove or disprove research. Just because Turkey Eating Tina is an insomniac and Vegetarian Vicki gets 10 hours of sleep a night, it does not disprove a research study that says IN GENERAL people who frequently eat turkey sleep more than people who never eat turkey. Nor does the fact that Turkey Eating Tom sleeps more than Strictly Beef Bob prove that the research is correct. These are anecdotes. Research (at least good research*) looks at a bigger picture. 

Therefore if you know a situation that does not fit with research, please do not use it as evidence that the research is wrong. And if you read research that speaks in generalities, please do not try to apply it to specific people or situations. 

This has been a public service announcement from a psychology major who has seen this happen far too often recently. Thanks for reading :)

*It is important to make sure that research is from reliable sources and actually research, not just someone making things up that agree with their side of the story. We all know that happens. Especially on the Internet.

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