Should I change my behavior based on one study?
And some ramblings about why I write what I write
If you read my newsletter regularly1, you might have noticed that I rarely go deep into a single study. Typical press coverage on science will usually summarize one study and then provide a few recommendations on how the results of that study might apply to your everyday life. I don’t really do that.
It’s rare for a single study to convince me to change the way I behave or think about parenting or mental health, and I don’t want my writing to necessarily encourage that type of reading of science anyway.
Sure, sometimes I’ll write about an individual study I find particularly compelling, but it’s usually a gateway to talk about something bigger than what the study necessarily intended. For example, when I read a cool study about fathers and oxytocin, it gave me an excuse to talk about the difficulties of understanding the relationship between hormones and our behaviors.
Other times, a study is so interesting and well-designed that while it may not definitively answer a question that has been nagging me, it comes close enough that I want to talk about it. I started wondering whether “baby brain” was a real thing after experiencing some forgetfulness during my first pregnancy. I always found the concept kind of sexist, but I didn’t really know about any of the science. Then I came across a study that laid out all the thinking about this topic in a thoughtful way and had results that have lived rent-free in my mind since reading them.
Neither study gave a straightforward answer to their questions, nor did they really provide a simple lesson that could be applied to daily life. Instead, they did what good science always does: Improved our understanding about something complicated and provided opportunities for better, more specific scientific questions about those things in the future.
Generally, I don’t agree with the premise that the goal of science is to change our behaviors. When news articles summarize science with tidy take-home messages, I worry that it perpetuates the idea that all science should be applicable to our everyday lives. There is plenty of important mental health research that does not have implications for the way we live day-to-day, and that’s okay! As a scientist, I do a combination of basic research dedicated to advancing our knowledge about something (e.g., what does loneliness look like in the brains and bodies of people with serious mental illness) as well as applied research that takes that knowledge and uses it to develop and test new treatments (e.g., what interventions are most effective for improving the social lives of people with those illnesses). I believe both types of science are equally necessary and worthy of discussion.
I could go on and on about my own personal grievances with the way science is often discussed in popular media. I have strong feelings about the lack of scientific literacy, the eroding trust in scientific consensus, and the “do-your-own-research” mentality in our culture.
I view my writing as paying a form of respect, both to the scientists who work for years to see their hard work get published as well as to you, for taking what little free time you have in your day to read my writing. The least I can do is to accurately summarize the research I discuss and provide nuance around its implications (if there are any) for your daily life.
Writing this newsletter takes time and effort, and I don’t really want to spend hours or days writing about only one study. I would rather luxuriate in complicated questions like, “Is there evidence that nonparents are happier than parents?” or define often misunderstood condition like intrusive thoughts - things that can’t be addressed by just one study.
All of this is to say, I take this hobby of mine very seriously. Even when it’s talking about breastfeeding and poop, I want to make sure that I’m getting the science right.
Thank you, by the way!