Rick Froman wrote: > I saw some footnotes in an ad in Sports Illustrated for Wrigley's gum. > Following up at: > http://wrigleygumisgood.com/focus_concentration_alertness.html > produces reports of various ways that chewing gum can improve cognition. > Looks like an interesting site to investigate in Research Methods. > The initial ad caught my eye with a reference to an article in > Psychological Science: > Yue, Z., Huang, L., & Zhou, X. (2006). Regional brain activities > during gum chewing. Psychological Science, 29, 1153-1156. > The original ad in Sports Illustrated was on p. 87 of the December 29, > 2008 issue. > Beech-Nut and Wrigley have a long history of commissioning research to "demonstrate" that gum chewing has various fashionably healthful consequences. Beech-Nut commissioned the well-known Columbia psychologist Harry Hollingworth to write a whole book on the topic -- /The Psycho-Dynamics of Gum Chewing/ (1939). Phil Wrigley (legendarily awful owner of the Chicago Cubs) used this and other research to persuade the US military to include his chewing gum in the K-rations of every single US soldier sent to Europe during WWII. He made (more of) a fortune (see my "Psychology Strikes Out: Coleman R. Griffith and the Chicago Cubs" /History of Psychology, 6/, 267-283. footnote 5).
Gum companies aren't the only ones to use "scientific" research as part of their marketing campaigns. Coca Cola hired Hollingworth back in 1911 to show that the caffeine they added to their product did not have have detrimental effects, and then to testify on their behalf in a court case (see Benjamin, L. T., Rogers, A. M., & Rosenbaum, A. (1991). Coca-Cola, caffeine, and mental deficiency: Harry Hollingworth and the Chattanooga trial of 1911. /Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences, 27/, 42-55). Some would say that the pharmaceutical industry does the same thing on a massive scale today. Merry/Happy/Joyous, Chris -- Christopher D. Green Department of Psychology York University Toronto, ON M3J 1P3 Canada 416-736-2100 ex. 66164 [email protected] http://www.yorku.ca/christo/ ========================== --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly ([email protected])
