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andrewducker ([personal profile] andrewducker) wrote2010-01-19 11:01 am
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[identity profile] cloverbee.livejournal.com 2010-01-20 08:27 am (UTC)(link)
It may match experiences, but it still should not be publish as a study without real data to back it up. And I mean a good baseline, a good sample of women, and a solid measuring system. It just pushes my buttons. I agree that a lot of women probably do have that and also believe a lot of men do too, especially young. The football players/cheerleade sterotypes. We've all seen that. And we see today in TV and in magazines and the fashion industry and what people expect people to look like. The whle body image thing. And I agree with you - I don't think the evolutionary thing plays as big of a role as the environment does and society and the behaviors that you are or aren't allowed to use to get what you need. I had to earn what I got. And a lot of girls didn't. A lot guys didn't and lot of them did. I think the pendulum swings both ways. I would be very interested in seeing a REAL study on both sexes here. It very well may be true. I am more upset at the process of the study than the idea of it being false on the outcome. If it had been conducted well & this was the outcome, I wouldn't have a problem with it. Does that make sense. I just don't like it when researches take these small pockets of people and generalize a whole sterotype of "people" from it. No matter who it is. I hope that makes sense.
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[personal profile] andrewducker 2010-01-20 08:29 am (UTC)(link)
150 women is a statistically valid sample size if you're talking about comparing two simple scales and the changes are reasonably large.

Do you have a link to the study details?

[identity profile] cloverbee.livejournal.com 2010-01-20 08:49 am (UTC)(link)
Just the link you have. And it is a rather LARGE sample size (we don't know the true sample min/max because don't know the population of females of UCA in their study, it could be 15 - 50), but the results would only be valid if the women chosen were random women of UCA (we don't know that), the measurement system used to compare was unbiased (we don't that either) and the results published could only be referenced to the UCA women. If all the above were true, then the results in article should have read: Pretty women in UCA get angier easier than brunettes and redhead women in UCA. You can't take a sample set from a population as small as that and generalize to a worldwide population. You simple don't have enough knowledge of the variables. They did here, they were all students, about the same age, same housing conditions, same stress level, so not much difference in what could be affecting them outside of the "norm". But if you take women my age, with different variables, then you introduce sooo much more to it, you can't apply it. You can the test the coorelation against other universities with the same set same of variables that may apply, but you couldn't broaden it, the data wouldn't be theh same.

And in the whole scheme of doing this - "pretty" would have an definition based how they measured "pretty". Anger would have definition of they measured anger. And also blond, brunette and redhead would have definitions BEFORE it started. Thats where that unbiased measurement system would come into play. It would be easy for me to put a strawberry blond in blond category and for you to put her in a redhead cat. Or a dark blond in a brunette vs blond. Real easy.

I'm only saying this, because this is what I do. I'm a statistical process control engineer, and a master black belt in lean six sigma. So this whole thing just gets me going. I'm sorry. We don't have to debate it all night Andy. It's a silly article. I just riled up. I do this sometimes when i see polls. its a curse. I bet you do it when you see bad code. :)
Edited 2010-01-20 08:50 (UTC)
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[personal profile] andrewducker 2010-01-20 08:54 am (UTC)(link)
I see what you mean about broadening it to a wider range of people.

But I don't think you need a better definition of pretty - people (largely) know whether they're viewed as pretty, and it's that which is most likely going to affect whether they develop a sense of entitlement or not. The fact that hair colour correlated with perceived beauty isn't that surprising, but I don't think that it matters particularly.
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