Apply critical thinking and do academic research to evaluate the accu
claims made about household products. Learning Objectives 3a, 5a, 5b, 5c
Step 1: Watch the following TED Talk: Drawing False Conclusions from Neuroscience Research (webpage, opens
Step 2: Identify one product that makes some type of neuroscience claim. To find such a product, you might sea
fridge, pantry, or a closet in your house, or look at social media advertisements, Internet advertisements, or televi
determine the claim being made, read the packaging of the product or view the advertisement or commercial in its
Example: You find in your cabinets a box of “Sleepy Tea,” which claims that if you drink it before bedtime, you will
reading the packaging, you see that chamomile is being touted as the ingredient in the tea that induces sleep. Th
neuroscience claim made by “Sleepy Tea” is that the dose of chamomile in one teabag causes a person to fall.
Step 3: Search the academic literature to identify a research article that supports the claim or refutes it. The article
academic journal. Use one of the following resources to help you locate an academic article:
Monitor on Psychology (webpage, opens in a new tab) – it is reader-friendly and has thousands of articles
SPC’s online library: http://www.spcollege.edu/current-students/learning-resources (webpage, opens in a new tab
Google Scholar (webpage, opens in a new tab). Note that Google Scholar only provides an abstract, which is a su
provides a PDF to the full article, but if not, you will need to locate the full article on SPC’s LibraryOnline (webpag
after reading the abstract on Google Scholar.
Read the academic article you selected. Pay particular attention to the information in the article that addresses th
the claim made by the product.
Step 4: Compose an APA citation for the article you selected. That means to cite the article according to the 6th o
Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association. Use the following as a model:
Kemps, E., Tiggermann, M., Orr, J., & Grear, J. (2014). Attentional re-training can reduce chocolate consumption.
Experimental Psychology: Applied, 20(1), 94-102. https://doi.org/10.1037/xap0000005
Last name, Initials. (Year). Title of article with only the first word and proper nouns capitalized. Title of Journal, Vo
page range. http://doi.xxx
The following page from Purdue University’s Online Writing Lab (OWL) explains how to craft an APA citation for a
https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/research_and_citation/apa_style/apa_formatting_and_style_guide/reference_list_artic
(webpage, opens in a new tab).
Step 5: Create a post that includes the following:
First, state the name of the product you selected, including the neuroscience claim made by the product.
In your own words, write a summary of the article that discusses the accurate neuroscience. Explain why the accusation
which the claim was based supports the claim, partially supports the claim, or is “neuro-bunk” (baloney, nonsense
attention to whether the advertisement or packaging infers cause-and-effect from correlation alone. As you recall
research methods, correlation alone is not causation.
Last, include the APA citation for the article you selected and the hyperlink (the full url) to the article you selected.
Step 6: Review the grading rubric (webpage, opens in new tab), which explains the expectations for your writing.
Sample Solution
