On 12 Aug 2008 at 13:58, Christopher D. Green wrote:
> Psychologists, sad to say, have often been a little over-reaching in
> their assertions of certainty, and so have occasionally claimed "laws" > in
> an attempt to boost their scientific status.
Such is the case for the Yerkes-Dodson Law, which is no law at all. The
original work supposedly validating it did no such thing, and later
research had no better success. I recall the abstract of one paper which
failed to support the "law":
There is a flaw
In the evidence for
The Yerkes-Dodson law.
To call it "ubiquitous"
Is pretty iniquitous
Brown, P. (1965). The Yerkes-Dodson law repealed. Psychological Reports,
17, 663-666
This, BTW, is one of only two papers I am aware of in which the abstract
is written in verse. The other, ahem, is mine.
Chen and Haviland-Jones claim if you're down
You needn't be depressed and mope around
Check out Granny's smell
It'll make you feel well
One problem: no supporting evidence was found
Black, S.L. (2001). Does smelling granny relieve depressive mood?
Commentary on `Rapid mood change and human odors'. Biological Psychology,
55, 215-218.
Stephen
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