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She
covered her difficult-to-refute
theories that massaging (touch therapy)
premature infants translates into a 40%
weight gain. But her most
provocative (to me) point was a tantalizing suggestion
that Americans
have more violence in our culture because we don't encourage
touching.
Difficult to
refute theories? Then she did not present scientific theorizing, or
you simply agree with the assumptions she made? In other words, you
found her ideas persuasive, but have you evaluated her "theories"
carefully or read the actual research?
I am grossly oversimplifying, so will try to supply a few more points
Yes, I know. I have come away from quite a few conference
presentations with the same enthusiasm, and I also like this area of study,
and what she seems to be saying agrees with my preconceptions as
well.
She
found American
adolescents were much more likely to perform
"self-stim" behaviors such as
flipping their hair (ah,
America! there's one I'd like to see die an early death),
cracking
knuckles and jiggling their heels. She discussed how we give male
children
the message that it is NOT okay to touch others (particularly
other males), but it
IS okay, essentially, to be aggressive "if
necessary."
Now this sounds like a lot of speculation and opinion. Methinks she
should spend more time learning about culture and appreciating the danger of
easy, oversimplified generalizations.
Before
anyone spews forth the "correlation is not causation" stuff, of
which I am
well aware, please be aware that Dr. Field was careful not to
make any global assumptions.
There seem to be a few, but my point would be that if she really thinks she
is doing scientific theory development then she must make these assumptions
explicit and provide reason and evidence for them. I would ask my
students to explore the assumptions in such work or "theorizing"
and the presumptions that this researcher brought to her
study.
She
is also an expert in her field and doesn't do sloppy research. Her talk was
covered
the next day in The Boston Globe.
Hmm? Fallacious argument from authority and citation of non-empirical,
pop-culture forums? What makes someone an authority? Because she
has published in the area? The key here would be whether her published
research was scrutinized by scientific peers, has been, or is capable of
being replicated by others, and development of further research showing the
scientific utility of her studies. Just because she is credentialed,
published, or does a nice presentation doesn't make her an authority in my
view. I know you know the Boston Globe has a wonderful cadre of
scientifically literate cogniscenti and that must mean her work is really
solid to have achieved such coverage ;-) NOT
What
say you? I think it has tremendous social psych. possibilities.
Great stuff.
I think it is neat. I think it is interesting and would have liked to
hear more about, or references to, her actual research. I am more
doubtful about her generalizations regarding American youth touching and
think she was going beyond her data to imply such things. I don't
think her work is really relevant (as far as I can tell here) to such arena,
and become skeptical when researchers/presenters leap to such socially
relevant, but pop-psych agendas. I have done some small field studies
and lab work exploring self-touch, object-fondling, worry beads, calming
stones, etc., so I am interested in the topic and would like to know if you
have references to her work? Thanks Beth,
Gary
Gerald
(Gary) L. Peterson, Ph.D.
Professor, Department of Psychology
Saginaw
Valley State University
University Center, MI 48710
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
1-517-790-4491
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