cliterature

WebMD (amongst others) is reporting that dressing in red really does make you look sexier to men.  “Although male students found a woman’s image on a red background more attractive than a white background, the female students did not.” This is taken to suggest women should wear a red dress to be seen as sexy.  However the data relates to background, not garb, it is not specified what the women in the experimental photographs were wearing (if anything).

SheKnows reports: ‘Unexpectedly however, men were more likely than women to give priority to a romantic relationship when asked to choose between a relationship and their career, education and traveling.”  They apparently didn’t considered whether a sample of male undergraduate psychology students filling out  survey is representative of your average male, actually being asked to make those trade-offs.

NY Times writes that female IT workers are injured more than males.  Breaking news from the year before last, they say: “In 2006, the overall number of injuries at IT-related employers stood at 840, with 480 injuries, or 57% of the total, suffered by women.” Although quite why this can be considered meaningful I don’t know.  They fail to report how many of the workers generating these reports were female–and whether it is significantly less than 57%.  Although no data suggests that there is any difference in footwear-related injuries, an interviewee blames women’s shoes.  (i.e. fill a void in information with some gendered speculation–women are hurt more because they wear silly shoes.)  (I know my IT staff is always seen in stilettos [/sarcasm]).

Various sites including the Daily Mailhaving been running with the story that men are their most romantic at the age of 53.  (Overly specific results are always suspect).  How can they tell?  Well in the absence of a love-o-meter it seems to come down to:  “This is the time they tend to splash out on chocolates, flowers and perfume.”  This based on self report by men, answering questions as part of a survey that is not well  described (who was surveyed, why, and by whom?)

Meanwhile, the Daily Mail, by way of UPI, reports that the gloss wears off a marriage within three years (or, speaking of overly specific data: two years, six months and 25 days). They state that: “Research company onepoll.com [paid by?] said its survey [you didn’t see the actual data?] of 5,000 married couples suggests 83 percent of couples stop spending their anniversary together after three years of marriage…. whilst they still love their other half they’re a little too comfortable in each other’s company.” 

 The long and short of it is this.  Don’t take any of these reports too seriously.  Most are based on weak science and others gibly summarise the research in a way that makes its real meaning hard to judge.  When reading research reports look at what was really measured, who was studied and how the slippery concept of romance and sexuality is being defined–and that is before you even get to who is paying the bills and how egregiously the results are being over-generalised.

If you want reliable science, try a peer-reviewed journal.  One that will report the hypothesis the researcher came in with.  Because often the journalist also comes in with their own hypothesis/angle and any meaningful information tends to get lost in the mash up between the two.  However if any of these studies sound at all interesting I will do may best to track down where the information original came from and what it really means–just drop me a comment.

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