In fact, Bem has a background in physics: a BA from Reed College, and he started in the physics graduate program at MIT before switching to psychology.
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. ________________________________________ From: sbl...@ubishops.ca [sbl...@ubishops.ca] Sent: Thursday, January 06, 2011 10:42 AM To: Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS) Subject: Re: [tips] Don't Be Surprised If Your Physics Colleagues Snicker When They Pass You In the Hall On 6 Jan 2011 at 8:46, Mike Palij (yada, yada) wrote: >> I wonder if anyone has conducted a case study on Bem to understand why > he believes in PSI? The simple answer would be because that's where he believes his results take him. A good scientist has to accept what his data tells him, regardless of the consequences and his own beliefs, even if contrary. Of course, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and the claim here is extraordinarily extraordinary. Still, he did play by the rules, which got his paper past peer review. As for Mike's title, I don't think physics colleagues have much to snicker about, not when you remind them of the Bogdanov twins ( http://tinyurl.com/29gnz6l ) and the polywater debacle. (Wikipedia also has a nice long piece on the Bogdanovs). Stephen -------------------------------------------- Stephen L. Black, Ph.D. Professor of Psychology, Emeritus Bishop's University Sherbrooke, Quebec, Canada e-mail: sblack at ubishops.ca --------------------------------------------- --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: mbour...@fgcu.edu. To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13390.2bbc1cc8fd0e5f9e0b91f01828c87814&n=T&l=tips&o=7710 or send a blank email to leave-7710-13390.2bbc1cc8fd0e5f9e0b91f01828c87...@fsulist.frostburg.edu --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: arch...@jab.org. To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df5d5&n=T&l=tips&o=7712 or send a blank email to leave-7712-13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df...@fsulist.frostburg.edu
