What does the popular media article claim? What do they say the research has found?
The article chosen for this paper is published in the popular newspaper New York Post. Although the public considers this source as a tabloid, this text of scientific article analysis is very decent because it is balanced between specified vocabulary and accessible writing style. The central claim in the article is that attractive people have a stronger immune system (Court, 2022). The author pays primary attention to the discussion of the methodology that was used. Court claims that the researchers photographed and took the blood of 159 participants to show these photos to 492 other volunteers for evaluation (Court, 2022). The study results confirmed the claim about the positive correlation between attractiveness and the immune system.
From the Abstract of the original scientific article, what does the research actually show?
The text of the research article is obviously not so easy to read compared to the text from the New York Post. As for its content, the research was based on several variables. It searched associations of attractiveness not only with the quality of the immune system but also with self-reported health and measures of inflammation (Mengelkoch et al., 2022). As for the research results, the authors suggest that the study’s findings are complex and often sex-differentiated, so they cannot be interpreted in a highly straightforward way (Mengelkoch et al., 2022). Thus, the widespread unwillingness of academic scholars to consider their findings as universal and general is seen.
How does this compare to the popular media article?
The popular media article did a great job extracting the main findings from the original research but tried to hide some complex explanations of the explained phenomenon. On the one hand, the newspaper article’s author attempted to present the exact phrases from the research itself. It helped the author avoid the ambiguity that can appear because of little knowledge of biology. On the other hand, Court (2022) did not mention anything about other variables used in the research. In addition, there was nothing about the sex-differentiated nature of the findings. Nevertheless, Court did a great job of introducing the main patterns of the study. It is especially great that Court provided researchers with feedback and comments about their opinion concerning the study.
References
Court, A. (2022). Attractive people have better immune systems, new research reveals. New York Post. Web.
Mengelkoch, S., Gassen, J., Prokosch, M. L., Boehm, G. W., & Hill, S. E. (2022). More than just a pretty face? The relationship between immune function and perceived facial attractiveness. Proceedings of the Royal Society, 289(1969), 1-9. Web.