Bourgeois, Dr. Martin wrote:
I think that Bem's results are best interpreted in light of his approach to hypothesis testing. His chapter on writing in The Compleat Academic advocates HARKing, or hypothesizing after the results are known. Although many, such as Norb Kerr at Michigan State, see HARKing as intellectually dishonest, Bem believes that one should write an introduction after looking at the results, in order to tell a coherent story. Study 1 of Bem's forthcoming paper provides a good example: he tested men and women on erotic stimuli, nonerotic but romantic stimuli, positive stimuli, negative stimuli, and neutral stimuli. He predicted and found an effect such that choices on erotic but not nonerotic stimuli were slightly but significantly greater than chance. I suspect that had he found effects only for men, only for women, only for positive, negative, or nonerotic stimuli, he would have predicted the effect he found. One could similarly critique each of the studies in the paper; for example, sometimes he predicted and found that individual differences (e.g., in extraversion or sensation seeking) moderated the effects, sometimes not. If enough hypotheses are tested in any given study, some are bound to come out. I don't think that Bem is doing anything unusual; Kerr's research suggests that HARKing is quite common in psychology. Bem also used one-tailed tests, which seems curious for a paper testing extraordinary claims.
I agree with Martin's point about Bem's advocacy of telling a good story after the results are known.
I read the in-press ms that was floating about. Bem's assertion (in the in-press ms) that he didn't need to identify the mechanism of action permitted him to dodge questions about what I saw as an inchoate collection of results.
Ken --------------------------------------------------------------- Kenneth M. Steele, Ph.D. [email protected] Professor and Assistant Chairperson Department of Psychology http://www.psych.appstate.edu Appalachian State University Boone, NC 28608 USA --------------------------------------------------------------- --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: [email protected]. To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df5d5&n=T&l=tips&o=7718 or send a blank email to leave-7718-13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df...@fsulist.frostburg.edu
