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StrangeCharmVote t1_j4czeii wrote

Reply to comment by NotReallyHere01 in Women with high body dissatisfaction, when compared to women with low body dissatisfaction, directed their gaze more frequently and for longer durations towards low weight female body stimuli by giuliomagnifico

Personally having not read the link, could you tl;dr how the split in sample size was determined...

By which i mean, if joining the study is voluntary, how do we know the people doing so will 'randomly' be in one group or the other, and is the value self reported?

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NotReallyHere01 t1_j4d0dsy wrote

I only skimmed it myself. But it's a meta-analysis of 34 other published studies, so the sampling methods would be found in each of those respective studies.

I was just confused as to why there was criticisms of the sample size (almost 3000 is usually considered decently representative so long as it's properly randomised as you highlight) and the methods (which specifically included gaze tracking). Not here to argue over anything other than those specific criticisms, both of which are answered in the first few paragraphs of the article.

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StrangeCharmVote t1_j4d3743 wrote

Fair enough just thought i'd ask, as i can see at some level what the commenter may be getting at.

Also if it's a meta analysis of so many studies, wouldn't that mean each of the others on average had less than 100 participants? And that the studies must have been testing for, selecting, and accounting for different and more narrow kinds of results?

Anyways, doesn't matter. At some stage opening and reading the link would be required on my part i guess :P

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NotReallyHere01 t1_j4d45d7 wrote

You're not wrong. And this isn't bulletproof. But small n studies are often needed on a particular subject in it's academic infancy almost like a proof of concept. A meta analysis like this helps expand or elucidate things that small n studies can't. They can all then be used to pitch for funding for the larger, more representative, more comprehensive studies.

In that framework, I see it as still very useful science, even if it's not entirely settled.

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