Narcissism is an epidemic in America, at least according to the older generations of Americans. According to the research article “The Narcissism Epidemic Is Dead; Long Live the Narcissism Epidemic” by Wetzel, this narcissism epidemic is not only nonexistent but it probably never happened at all.
Variables used in the research was narcissism and the Narcissistic Personality Inventory (NPI) survey. Narcissism was a dependent variable defined by high scores on the NPI survey. The NPI survey is a dependent variable since the participants had to answer their own survey.
Research participants were undergraduates between the ages of 18 to 24 years old from the years 1992 to 2015. The three colleges participants can from where the University of California Berkeley, the University of Illinois and the University of California Davis. Throughout the years the research was being performed researchers put extra emphasis on each of these three colleges.
Research participants were selected from three non-randomly selected universities, so the study is only generalizable to students from these three universities. Research participants were placed in groups based on ethnicity and gender. Each category of people was analyzed and compared to the results of all of the NPI tests. Group assignment was done by ethnicity and gender there was no random assignment in grouping participants. Random assignment is a defining feature of an experiment. Causal claims can only be made through true experiments. Research without random assignment cannot make causal claims.
The results of the research were a decline in narcissism. Results of the study are only generalizable to the undergraduate students from the University of California Berkeley, the University of Illinois and the University of California Davis. This group of people is very small compared to the general population of young people in America. The researchers were wrong to generalize their results to the wrong population. Also since the research was not a true experiment so no causational clauses can be made either. This study alone cannot disprove the narcissism epidemic it can be used to help other research disprove the existence of the narcissism epidemic.
Reflection:
My summary had the small word limit of 367 words making it hard to include all the research information into the word limit. The most important information needed in the article was, an introduction, five critical question answers, and research results were included. An introduction and conclusion were included since both are essential to writing since they hook the reader in and closes the article. Answering the five critical questions shows that the writer understands the research article.
Another thing I did was tell the reader how to interpret the research article. I did this because my word limit was so short I could not be able to include enough information to allow the reader to form their own opinion about the research article. After writing the introduction and about the five critical questions I did not have enough words to explain the research without inserting my own opinions. I was able to include a few sentences about how I reached my opinion on the research article.
To reduce my word count, I also combined the results my opinions on the research, and the conclusion in the last paragraph of the article. The reason for this was that the results supported my opinion on the research. The conclusion was included in the last paragraph since I did not have enough words left for another paragraph. Also, the result of an experiment and an opinion on the research are both topics usually at the end of an article so adding the conclusion to the paragraph read naturally.
In my rough draft, I was extremely harsh for my conclusion of the article. At one point I even included the statement “the research does not matter.” I did this because I disliked the pop culture article “The Myth of the American Narcissist” by Laura Entis over exaggerated research results, so I want to be realistic while writing my article. Instead of being realistic I went into the territory of being hostile. Later I changed my article’s wording so that it was not hostile but critical. This critical writing approach is very different from Laura Entis’ article which over exaggerated the results of the research.
The main differences from the Laura Entis article and my own were our approaches on the five critical questions. While writing my article, my main objective was to answer the five critical questions. Answering the five critical questions took up half of my summary. Laura Entis’ article was made up of a short introduction and a three-question interview with one of the researchers of the study. Though Entis did not answer all of the five critical questions (Entis).
For the critical question of optimizing variables of the experiment both me and Entis had the same answer. Entis did not include any mention of the critical question of how participants were selected. Then Entis did not answer the question of how participants were assigned into groups. In my article, I answered the critical questions of how the participants were selected and how participants were assigned to groups. More critical questions I answered clearly but Entis did not as if the research allowed for causal claims and if the researches generalized the results correctly. Entis did not answer these questions directly but gave enough evidence for a reader knowledgeable about causal claims and generalization can figure out the answers for themselves (Entis).
From the pop culture, scholarly, and media production assignments I learned about journalism and strategies for reading research papers. When reading a research paper look out for the answers of the five critical questions. By finding the answers to the five critical questions, a reader is able to understand how the research was performed and judge if the conclusion the researchers came up with was correct or not.
In journalism, the writer needs to understand the research paper they are citing and write something not only accurately relays the information from the research paper but is also interesting to the reader. Also, journalists have word limit too. So this means even if they want to the journalist could not include all the information from the research paper without the article being extremely dense and similar to the abstract of the research paper. So in order to write something interesting within their word limit, a large amount of research cannot be included in the article. By writing these articles, I gained a higher respect for journalists. Journalists summarize research papers into short articles the general public can easily read.
Another topic I learned about from the previous assignments was writing in general. In the writing manuals, I learned many tips which I incorporate in my writing in other classes as well. One of the tips I use the most often is avoiding to use the word that. Also, I write more simple now to avoid making grammar mistakes by trying to overcomplicate sentences.
Overall I learned not only about narcissism but about how research articles become pop culture articles and strategies on how to read research articles. By doing these assignments, it made me look at and experience all the parts a pop culture article is made of.
Work Cited
Entis, Laura. “The Myth of the American Narcissist.” Psychology Today, Sussex Publishers, 10 May 2018, http://www.psychologytoday.com/us/articles/201803/the-myth-the-american-narcissist.
Wetzel, Eunike, et al. “The Narcissism Epidemic Is Dead; Long Live the Narcissism Epidemic.” Psychological Science, vol. 28, no. 12, Dec. 2017, pp. 1833–1847, doi:10.1177/0956797617724208.
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