In the TV show Mythbusters, episode titled “Are Women Better Than Men at Reading Emotions?”, I am observing and critiquing the methods that are being used to test this particular myth. It is being assumed that women are better at acknowledging and reading someones emotions than men are. This experiment had tested this theory by ushering in both male and females to look at pictures of just the Mythbuster crews’ eyes and taking their best shot of what emotion they are expressing before reveling the rest of their face (and the answer). It is not mentioned in the short clip if these participants are random, or if they were chosen specifically for this experiment. If these were all fans of the Mythbusters TV show, there could have been some that recognized facial expressions of their favorite person on the cast more so than others were able to. This also goes hand-in-hand with if the participant were close friends with any of the cast, too; usually we are able to recognize our friends’ facial expressions better than strangers or people that we do not know as well. This could be a flaw in their data collection due to a skew of the variety of participants. There is a good selection of both men and women viewing the slideshow; they also are all being presented in the same room, under the same conditions to observe the pictures being presented. Yet, as a viewer of the clip, it is uncertain how many comments the crew initiates towards the participant as they are looking through the photographs. Encouragement, discouragement, criticism, noises, or no verbal communication at all may be effecting participants differently, as well as their way of thinking as they work through all of the pictures. These are factors that could change the way the person sitting in front of the screen continues through the test. At the end of the clip we do learn that there is a variety of wrong and right answers between both men and women, so it is not prevalent that women are better than men at recognizing emotions. However, it is apparent that the women’s answers are much more rapid in response and seems to be more instinctive. This is a tidbit that we can take from the mini-myth being tested, yet we are not necessarily able to rely on it directly considering we are not sure of all the outside components that we do not know about.
Cassidy's Psych Blog 
Hi Cassidy!
I think all of the points you made in your post were very good! The comment about the participants being fans of the show and familiar with the cast’s faces was very interesting. That would have definitely created sampling bias. It is also possible that the study did not involve random selection. If the participants were only viewers of the show, than the participants were not selected randomly which could have effected the results. If there was sampling bias, you could also add in that the mythbusters team cannot make their conclusions about the human population as a whole. As we learned in class, the research team would only be able to make conclusions about the few people they selected.
Also, the video may have been too short to be certain, but the researchers may not have started their experiment with a hypothesis and they most likely did not look into any literature before beginning. Since we have now discussed the scientific method in class, we know it is important to begin a study by researching the topic in literature and then building a testable hypothesis.
I also thought the point you made about others influencing the participant’s responses was very good. This is most likely true, since we now know about the Hawthorne Effect and how knowing you are being watched can influence your behavior.
Overall, I think your post is great and you made excellent points throughout!
-Estefany
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