This past semester, the Cognitive Group discussed an article by Nelson, L. D., & Simmons, J. P. (2007) investigating the Name-Letter effect (see the previous entry for details). The group was surprised by the finding that students whose names began with C or D had lower GPAs than students whose names began with A or B. We did our best to analyze the design of the study and to critically consider the context in which the results were presented.
The need for such critiques is made apparent with the publication in Newsweek (November, 2007) of a summary of the effect. A comparison of the Newsweek synopsis with the article itself provides an excellent illustration of how the popular media presents findings from Psychological Science.
To read the Newsweek summary, please continue reading...
Thanks to Katie Cross for finding the excerpt.