Now, this will be a literary review, but not exactly like something I’ve done before. Usually, I like to do my reviews on genres within the creative writing world (i.e. short stories, flash fiction, poetry, etc.), but this time I’ve stepped into the world of reading research articles. Yes, it sounds boring, but this particular journal article piqued my interest so much, I simply have to do a review on it. This will be more along the lines of me dissecting the information presented in this particular article that I read, but still a review of the writing style of this piece of writing.
Given the assignment in my new psychology class, we had the opportunity to look through journal articles on things we found interesting in our lesson. Starting with an interest in counseling psychology and all the things related to the specific practice, I looked through maybe 30 journal articles, but to no avail, none that I looked at held any real interesting information. In another attempt, I went for journal articles concerning developmental psychology. This is where I stumbled across this particular article highlighting a psychological study on household chaos. Written by Jennifer A. Emond, this article, entitled, Household chaos: a risk factor for adverse child outcomes gains attention in public health, highlights important information found in a study on the influences that household chaos can have on the development of a child and their physical health as they grow into adolescence. The question must stand, what is household chaos? As the article defined it, it is “characterized by high levels of confusion, disorganization and hurriedness in the home.” This alone had me hooked on the article. Never in my life have I thought of household chaos being a problem. Though my home life is less chaotic now that all the birds have left the nest, as a young child I often remember moments of pure chaos in my house. It definitely makes me wonder if I have been affected by said chaos.
The article goes on to explain the influences that household chaos can take on behavioral, attention, and learning problems in children. The writer utilizes the information in a very effective way to downsize the scientific jargon that was surely present in the original study. The writer provides a clear, structured article that is very easy to follow and uses words that cater to the less informed on the scientific terms and scientific data used regularly in articles like this. I particularly enjoyed this “layman’s” explanation as I am only into my fifth class of psychology.
The overall article was very well written and definitely gives me insight on research and technical writing, a different side of the literary world that I am not so used to seeing…
But to go into my dissecting process, I would love to share that the article highlighted the correlation between household chaos and sleep. Now, I can’t say that my own experience with household chaos directly influences my terrible sleep schedule, but I can come to the conclusion that there might be some connection between the two. I can’t for the life of me tell you how a psychologist might have even considered that your sleeping behaviors could be a result of high levels of household chaos, but they have. This is what further deepens my growing love for psychology; it is literally everywhere! There is a psychology to everything we know. There is a psychology behind sleeping behaviors, communicative disorders, and even the way we walk!
I won’t go on much more considering I’ll probably just keep on talking about the many wonders of the science of psychology and how I am always in awe of the information that comes about from it. Unfortunately, the article was subjected to being in a library with limited access meaning I can’t share it with you all, but I encourage you to look more into this phenomenon and see what other information you can find! Psychology is slowly making its way into my curious heart and I am so excited to see what else I can learn.
