Florida State University. "Follow Your Gut Down
the Aisle, New Study Says." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 28 Nov.
2013. Web. 28 Nov. 2013.
The article, “Follow
Your Gut Down the Aisle, New Study Says,” reports that newlyweds should listen
to their gut evaluation of their partners when determining whether their
marriage will become blissful or miserable. Associate
Professor of Psychology, James K. McNulty, and his colleagues studied 135
heterosexual couples who had been married for less than six months. Then, they
observed them every six months over a four-year period. McNulty and his
colleagues concluded that the emotions that were verbalized by the participants
about their marriages do not relate to changes in their marital happiness over
time; however, it was the automatic negative evaluations that the partners
expressed during the baseline experiment that determined wedded happiness. To
begin the experiment, participants were told to inform the researchers of their
relationship satisfaction and the severity of their relationship issues. In
addition, the researchers told the participants to describe their marriage
according to 15 pairs of opposing words, which represent the conscious marriage
evaluations made by partners. To receive gut-level evaluations of the
marriages, a flashing photo of the individual’s spouse would appear only
one-third of a second on a computer screen. Next, a positive word like
"awesome" or "terrific" would appear, or a negative word
like "awful" or "terrible" would appear. Then, the
participants had to press a key on the keyboard to indicate whether the word
was positive or negative. In order to measure the reaction time of the
participants pressing the key, the researchers of the study used special software.
Participants who experienced positive gut-level attitudes were great at
processing positive words, and thus, horrible at processing negative words. The
opposite was also true with participants who experienced negative gut-level
attitudes. Spouses with negative gut feelings had difficulty processing positive
words. Even though the experiments were done once during the baseline, the
researchers checked in with the couples every six months and asked them to
report relationship satisfaction. The researchers found that participants who
showed negative automatic feelings reported marital dissatisfaction four years
later. On the other hand, conscious attitudes were unrelated to changes in
marital satisfaction.
This
study, conducted by James K. McNulty and his colleagues, shows that people
should listen more to their gut regarding their future marriage happiness. In
addition, if people automatically feel that there is a problem present, then
they should seek help or possibly end the relationship.
After reading about
this study, I believe that much more research must be done in order to conclude
whether gut-level feelings determine future wedded happiness. Furthermore, this
article leaves out how gut-level responses take place. Therefore, I did some
extra research and found out that the intestinal nervous system is wired directly into the
prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain that is in charge of the person’s
thoughts and decisions, influencing and concentrating on goals. The gut feeling
is due to the prefrontal cortex recognizing aspects of situations. Overall, this
article was informative and interesting, but it left out important scientific
details that the reader should be informed about.
I read Maria’s review of the article, “Follow Your Gut Down the Aisle, New Study Says.” I thought Maria did a great job reviewing this article in that she did explained the topic clearly. I was able to come away with a good understanding of the topic. I also liked how she choose a topic that was outside the usual biological fields but then connected it back to biology. Finally, I liked how she pointed out the things that did not have a correlation to marriage happiness instead of simply looking at the positive correlations.
ReplyDeleteMaria did a great job overall, but I wished she could have spent a little more time on the science of the experiment. I also wished that she could have included a few quotes from the article to make it more exciting.
This study connects to society today because the divorce rate is so high resulting in many broken families and the overall deterioration of many countries. However, I would beg to differ with this study since I believe that marriage is less about love and more about work.
I read Maria’s review on the article, “Follow Your Gut Down the Aisle, New Study Says.” This article was quite interesting, yet slightly predictable. One thing that I think Maria did very well was her description of the experiment that took place. She explained that an Associate Professor of Psychology, James K. McNulty, and his colleagues studied 135 heterosexual couples who had been married for six months and then they continued to check on them for four years. Next, I feel that Maria did a very good job in describing the outcome of this experiment. Those who were great at processing positive words about their spouse were still going strong, and those who were not great at doing so were having issues within their relationship. Lastly, I was really impressed with Maria’s further research. She felt that more research could be done in order to conclude whether gut-level feelings determine future wedded happiness, so she went deeper into this study. Although this review was very well presented, it could have been made better in two ways. One way would have been describing how the researchers measure the reaction time of the experiment, and how that ultimately connects to their gut-level attitudes. Another aspect that could have been improved would be to describe more into detail how the intestinal nervous system is somehow connected to gut-level responses. Although this article was interesting because it exposed a successful experiment, I felt that it was almost a silly experiment to conduct. Clearly, if people have any negative thoughts early into their marriage about their spouse, they are going to have issues with them later on.
ReplyDeleteAfter reading Maria’s review and the article, I had a better understanding of how our gut instincts are directly related to the brain, and how these feelings may actually hold substance. In her review, Maria did three things particularly well. First, she described all aspects of the study very well. After reading the review, I had a very good sense of how the study was conducted, what was measured and how, who was tested, and what was concluded. Second, she recognized that the study needed further review, and she actually did further research on the topic, which really helped me have a better understanding. Third, she explained her extra research very well, and described her findings. Maria explained that the gut area is actually wired to a specific part of the brain, thus responsible for the gut thinking.
ReplyDeleteAlthough Maria did a good job in her review overall, I think there are two minor things she can improve on. First, the inclusion of specific quotes from the article would make her review stronger. Specific quotes would establish the credibility of what Maria wrote in her review. Second, I think that Maria could have elaborated on how this study relates to the world. In her second paragraph, she only talked about how people should pay more attention to their gut feelings before their weddings, but I think that the article really showed that people should pay more attention to their gut feelings about anything, and that the gut feelings may actually hold some truth. The phrase “go with your gut” is more than just a saying, according to the article.
One interesting thing I learned after reading the article and the review is that our gut feelings can impair our reaction times. For example, Maria mentioned that the reaction time associating the newly weds true feelings toward their spouse was much faster than associating a false feeling. Overall, I enjoyed reading the article and review and gained a much better understanding about what a gut feeling is, and where this feeling comes from.
After reading Maria’s summary of the article “Follow Your Gut Down the Aisle, New Study Says,” I now know a lot more about the power of gut reactions in determining the success of a marriage. I really liked how Maria gave an in depth description of exactly what the researchers did in order to test each couple’s gut reactions. In order to accomplish this, the scientists would show pictures of the other spouse and then positive and negative words would pop up. The person would have to then click a positive or negative key and based on their reaction time, the scientists could measure if they have a positive gut reaction or negative gut reaction. I also found it commendable that Maria did extra research of what causes the gut reaction when she didn’t have to. She recognized that the article was missing some key scientific explanations and added them in for her own interest. Finally, Maria did a good job of evaluating the article critically. She told the reader that in her opinion this field of research has a lot more studying to do before this conclusion can be made.
ReplyDeleteFor next time, Maria could improve the section explaining what this research’s impact is for the future. I thought this part was kind of short and didn’t explain enough of the study’s effect. Also, to create a more succinct review, she could condense some of the summary part and add more of her personal reaction to the article.
One thing that I learned was that when certain words pop up, we can measure our gut reaction to them with computer technology by pushing a positive or negative button. Overall, I really enjoyed this review and think Maria did a great job!
I thought the article “Follow Your Gut Down the Aisle, New Study Says,” was thought provoking and scientifically interesting. Maria did an excellent job of reviewing such an interesting article and handled this review of this astounding issue quite well. This article was slightly complex and Maria did a great job of making this article sound exciting and interesting. I think Maria did a great job of simplifying the overall idea of the article to make the main concepts of the article stand out. That way I was able to get a pretty good feel for the article just from reading Maria’s review. Furthermore, Maria’s writing was clear and effective. She got to the heart of the article quite eloquently. Lastly, Maria’s connection of this article to the world today and what this discovery means for couples around the world made me question what science really means and got me thinking about how far science has come.
ReplyDeleteAlthough Maria’s review was great there are some things that she could improve on. For instance, Maria’s explanation of the baseline experiment was slightly confusing and while reading it at some points I had some trouble following the specifics of the experiment. In addition, there were some minor grammatical errors in her writing that could be corrected to make the reading even smoother. However, overall I felt that Maria’s writing and review of this article was excellent.
From this article I learned that on the whole a person’s gut feeling can, in fact, be quite accurate when it comes to the chemistry of a relationships and the longevity that it either has or doesn’t have. Overall, I had a great time reading Maria’s article and her excellent review of that article!
After reading Maria’s article “Follow Your Gut Down the Aisle, New Study Shows,” I feel as though I have a more thorough understanding of the connection between initial feelings and future marital satisfaction. There were many impressive parts to Maria’s review, one of them being her description of the experiment that occurred. By explaining that James K. McNulty, the Associate Professor of Psychology, conducted studies on 135 heterosexual couples every 6 months for 4 years, I was able to gain an understanding of what was taking place early in the review. Another aspect of the review that I enjoyed was her very detailed explanation of what the researchers and scientists did in order to obtain their conclusions, which was to rapidly display the pictures of each person’s spouse in addition to a positively or negatively associated word, and test their reaction times. A third section of her review that I found interesting was her addition of outside research to further comprehend her article. This not only aided her own knowledge, but the reader’s as well.
ReplyDeleteOne thing that I believe could have made Maria’s review better was if she had included direct quotes from the article in her analysis. She provided profound detail of the experiment throughout her review, but I think that her argument would have been made stronger if she added quotes from some of the researchers, for example. Another thing that I think could have ameliorated her review was a more extensive explanation of what this experiment means for the future. I believe that her review lacked in this area. However, I did learn that it was possible to gage an individual’s gut feelings towards another person by measuring their reaction time to various words. Overall, I enjoyed Maria’s review of the article and would hope to learn more about this subject in the future.
Maria had a great article summation of how the experiment was conducted. She explained clearly how they measured the "gut-feelings" of the couples involved in this experiment- something I got a little confused about while skimming the actual article. She got to the heart of the matter immediately, clearly stating the goals of the procedure. She also took to initiative herself to actually look up how this "gut feeling" is caused and why this gut feeling could be linked to subconscious thoughts. She also made sure to include the right numbers so that it made the experiment sound well conducted- such as the 135 heterosexual couples, and not just anything arbitrary.
ReplyDeleteI wish she had given her own opinions on this experiment. While she certainly did an exceptional job summing up the experiment, I see no particular connection of why this could actually matter. What bigger idea or study could this connect to? Yes, it was interesting, but other than that, I didn't see the point of this experiment, other than to just satisfy our own curiosity. I was hoping Maria would expand on what they planned to do with that data, or her own ideas of what these statistics could mean.
We certainly have all had these gut feelings. However, most of the time, we are simply overreacting- an automatic reaction to something that perhaps makes us nervous. Personally, I don't see how a gut feeling could possibly lead us to a conclusion. Perhaps if you were particularly observant or keen fellow but I'm a bit skeptical on actually relying on these "gut-feelings", and I think- even though they did have a "large" number of couples involved these trials, a marriage is determined more than by just initial feelings, and the trials don't cover for those factors.
I read Maria’s review on “Follow Your Gut Down the Aisle, New Study Says”. Overall I think Maria did a great job and I loved how she brought a whole new idea to our blog. This article wasn’t expected at all and it is so different from the common astrology, animal based, or cancer current events, that I found it absolutely fascinating. In Maria’s first paragraph I thought she presented the actual experiment. She definitely included all the important information included in the article and I didn’t have any questions about how the scientists conducted their experiment. She also gave her summary a great sense of a voice. She really explained her beliefs in the last paragraph on how more information was needed and she actually went and found outside information which added a whole new level of knowledge to the review.
ReplyDeleteAlthough I thought Maria had a lot of fantastics components in her review there were two things I thought she could’ve improved on. I liked how she thoroughly explained the steps of the experiment in her first paragraph, but I thought just listing step after step was a little boring and maybe adding in other facts or something in between each step would’ve helped in drawing the reader in. The second thing I thought Maria could’ve done better was more information in her second paragraph. I felt it just repeating information previously stated and it didn’t add anything to the review. Maybe some of the extra information she found could have shaped the argument on how important this is on humanity.
From reading this article and Maria’s review I was really impressed with the fact that a gut feeling a person has such a large affect on people’s relationships. I knew that first impressions made a difference but I did not know how prevalent they were in the long run.