IB Psych SL Paper 2 Review

Turning in my EE intro late for ts 💔🥀

Rosenbaum et al: Aim

To estimate the effects of DARE on students’ attitudes, beliefs, and drug use behaviors in the year following exposure to the program

Rosenbaum et al: Methods

• Quasi-experiment

• 1584 middle school students participated in longitudal study of effectiveness of DARE program

• Students randomly assigned to either receive DARE curriculum or serve as controls

• Assessments were conducted immediately after the program, then one year later

• Measures included self-reported drug use, attitudes toward drugs, self-esteem, and peer resistance skills

Rosenbaum et al: Results

• Found no statistical difference on drug use behaviors between control group and experimental group 1 year after DARE

• No significant differences on beliefs and attitudes

Rosenbaum et al: Limitations

• Generalizability → middle schoolers in Illinois

• Quasi-experiment → less control, sampling bias, no casual relationship

• Evaluation by program developers is susceptible to researcher bias

• Used self-report methods = social desirability effect

• Time period may be too short to capture long-term drug use trends

• DARE → use of fear arousal as form of manipulation

Lowe et al: Aim

To investigate the potential role of social cognitive theory in promoting healthy eating in British school children, with the goal of increasing fruit and vegetable consumption

Lowe et al: Methods

• Quasi-experiment

• Children aged 5-11 at 2 London schools split into two groups: control and Food Dudes Program

• Measured fruit consumption at both lunchtime and snack time, and parent recall at home

• Food Dudes Program

  • Watched superhero video episodes aimed at promoting healthy eating by praising fruits and vegetables and antagonizing junk food (“The Junk Punks”)

  • Teachers read letter from Food Dudes calling students to eat healthy to defeat Junk Punks and offered prizes for doing so

  • Consumption levels measured during and 4 months after program

Lowe et al: Results

• Significant increase in fruit and veggie consumption both at school and at home in experimental condition

• Greatest increase seen with children who started with low levels of consumption

• 4 months later → still eating 12x fruit and 4x veggies

• No change in rates of control group (L)

Lowe et al: Limitations

• Generalizability → British school children aged 5-11

• Quasi-experiment → less control, sampling bias, no casual relationship

• Potential influence of rewards on extrinsic motivations (students eating healthy only for rewards; like come on, who wouldn’t want that Food Dudes water bottle (I know I do))

Health Belief Model

Predicts that individuals will take health-related action if they think that negative health problem\can be avoided by taking recommended action and that they will be successful in doing so

Self-efficacy

Belief that one can actually accomplish the specific goal

Drug Abuse Resistance Education (DARE)

Students who enter the program agree to not use drugs or join gangs and are informed by local police officers

Critical thinking: Ethical considerations in health promotion

• The importance of the individual vs the group (e.g. anti-drug use); stigma

•  The use of fear arousal as a form of manipulation (especially among kids)

• making sure that campaigns are not available only to those with digital literacy or a certain income

Critical thinking: Discuss health promotion

• Many variables are difficult to measure: level of fear; perceived seriousness, level of self-efficacy

• Assumes that behavioral change is a conscious choice

• Many studies are cross-sectional and do not indicate the long-term effects of health promotion programs

• Impossible to control for extraneous variables

• The success of the application of theories

• Sampling bias n many of the studies.

Critical thinking: Discuss the effectiveness of one or more health programs  

• Not possible to isolate variables when studying large population being exposed to public media

  • Therefore, casual relationship cannot be established, only correlational

• Levels of exposure to media can only be measured through self-reported data

• Even if public health campaign is judged to be effective, often findings are not transferable to other populations 

• Simply measuring health outcomes through hospital or work-related data is not enough to determine that campaign itself made a difference. 

• Even if campaign fails, it is difficult to know whether it failed because of actual campaign or way it was delivered

• Much of data obtained = self-reported = potential demand characteristics influencing the final outcome 

• Strong evaluation requires triangulation = expensive + time consuming

• Program success = difficult to operationalize

Steen et al: Aim

To determine if SSS is linked with perceived stress in Danish teenagers

Steen et al: Methods

• Measured SSS in 8000+ Danish 9th graders (15-16)

• Perceived stress scale (PSS) used to assess stress levels

Steen et al: Results

• Girls had higher perceived stress than boys

• Low SSS associated with higher PSS scores than medium-high SSS

Rahal et al: Aim

To determine if SSS influences the stress response during acutely stressful situations

Rahal et al: Methods

• High schoolers from LA completed SSS questionnaires

• Trier Social Stress Test (TSST) conducted

  • 5 min to prepare for presentation in front of judges

  • 5 min to present to judges

  • 5 min to perform mildly difficult arithmetic

• HR and salivary cortisol levels checked before, during, and after TSST

• Emotional responses to TSST measured via questionnaire

Rahal et al: Results

• Negative correlation between SSS and TSST (higher social status = less stress)

• Lower SSS = greater fear reactivity as measured by HR ans cortisol levels