March 9, 2012

Bargh, Doyen and conclusions thereof.

I have just witnessed an interesting phenomenon.

I am concurrently to writing this blog-post, writing a literature review on priming and the Perception-Behaviour Link*. Another paper whom closely replicated the findings of Bargh et al. (1996)*, Doyen et al. (2012)**, were unable to replicate findings as well as provide an interesting demonstration of experimenter expectation. It is however presumptious to assume that the original literature* then also is explained by this bias. The reason is given in a reply by Bargh*** to the Doyen study, basically stating that the experiment was run as a blind study and so experimenter expectation can be safely ruled out. While Bargh's reply unfortunately contains personal attacks and evidence towards being technologically unwilling, he is defended by others in that his experiment _has_ been replicated successfully and that one study cannot refute several made on the same topic. The studies given (by others than Bargh -he did not give any studies as support in his criticism) as support for this claim are these; Elderly prime effect on simulated driving speed, Gay male prime effect on hostility, elderly or youth prime effect on walking time and accessibility as precursor to goal-fulfilment and high vs. low self-conscious difference in being primed by an elderly stereotype on walking speed (xps 2 & 3). I have reviewed one of these in my literature review and it is at best a conceptual replication with several issues in methodology and statistical interpretation (specifics available on request).

In my book, it is not enough to conceptually replicate, since one is then stuck with reviewing another piece of research with its own flaws and fallacies. Granted, Doyen comes close to replicating but did differ on the point of blind experimenters (it was one of the manipulations in Doyen). The assumption was that Bargh's work was non-blind (something I came to the conclusion of as well, although I've read the paper a gazillion times). This was not the case, and hence, it is also a conceptual replication. What _is_ interesting with the Doyen study is that it still supports the PBL, albeit unintentionally. The most important statistic presented is the believe-slow-walking speed comparison between automatic and manual measurement. Believe-fast-walking's significant difference was removed when considering both automatic and manual, not so for believe-slow. A last alternative for this significant difference is then experimenter expectation. The thing is though, experimenter expectation is also an environmental stimuli that is unconsciously internalised and evidently had an effect on observable behaviour! Well, this is what the Preception-Behaviour Link strictly posits.

Again, it is a bit of a shame that many of the arguments Bargh uses in his criticism of the Doyen study are arbitrary, unsupported and, on occasion, false in light of other research (even some from the area of priming)****. It does however not reflect on his prior research. In conclusion, Doyen does not specifically cut Bargh's research down, but rather, introduces another concept able to be accounted for within the Perception-Behaviour Link's framework.

On a second note, if you have unpublished research on the replication of Bargh et al.'s 1996 study, I would very much like to read it. I believe it is of central importance to be open-minded to one's own fallacies and others' criticism (even if I very much like the Perception-Behaviour Link theory), the only way is forward and it is only obstructed when self-preserving opinions and values are set before empirical research.

*Bargh, J.A., Chen, M., & Burrows, L. (1996). Automaticity of social behaviour: Direct effects of trait construct and stereotype activation on action. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 72, 230-244.
**Doyen, S., Klein, O., Pichon, C., & Cleeremans, A. (2012). Behavioural priming: It's all in the mind, but whose mind? doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0029081
***Bargh, J.A. (2012, March 5). The natural unconscious: Nothing in their heads. [Web log post]. Retrieved from http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-natural-unconscious/201203/nothing-in-their-heads.´
****See comment section of Bargh's blog post, specifically the one referring to Assimilation and Contrasting (which is found in Dijksterhuis, A., Spears, R., Postmes, T., Stapel, D.A., van Knippenberg, A., & Scheepers, D. (1998). Seeing one thing and doing another: Contrast effects in automatic behaviour. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 75, 862-871.)

2 comments:


  1. A GREAT SPELL CASTER (DR.TAKUTA) THAT HELP
    ME GET MY EX HUSBAND BACK, AM SO HAPPY
    My name is LUCY SETHI from USA .I am here to
    give testimony on how I got my husband back.
    My husband left me for no reason 3 years ago.
    He moved in with another woman, I felt like
    killing myself, my life became very bitter and
    sorrowful. Then 1 day, a friend of mine told me
    about a great spell caster that is very good and,
    he said he gave him some lucky numbers that he
    played in a lottery and he won. I didn't believe it
    because I've worked with so many of them and it
    didn't work. He begged me further so I decided
    to try this great spell caster called DR TAKUTA. I
    still didn't believe. I used the spell he gave me
    and the next day I received a call from my
    darling husband Thomas last month. He
    apologized and came back to me. He even gave
    me 10,000USD as a means of compensating me.
    I'm very happy now. please i will advise you to contact him
    now and see for your self his Email is via____
    takutaspellalter@gmail.com or whatsapp him
    through the following contact on +27788634102


    Dr.TAKUTA also cures:
    1. HEPATITIS A,B,C
    2. HERPES 1/2
    3.DIABETES
    4.STROKE.
    5.HIV/AIDS HERBAL CURE, STDS and STI
    6. MARRIAGE COUNSELLING
    7.LOVE SPELL CASTING
    8.JOB PROMOTION SPELLS
    9.MARITAL PROBLEM
    10.MAGIC MONEY SPELLS

    ReplyDelete
  2. Greetings to everyone reading this testimony, I am Dan Morgan, i am here to
    testify of a great man who was able to cure me permanently from herpes
    Disease just with his herbal medicine,i have been herpes Positive for 5
    years before i came across Dr voodoo Email on the internet on how he has
    been using his herbal medicine to treat and cure patients from different
    virus, so i contacted him and i explain to him concerning my problem, i
    followed up with the instructions he gave me and he urge me to have faith
    in his words that he was going to restore my health back, after some couple
    of days Dr voodoo sent me some medicine which he gave me prescription on
    how to take for 2 weeks, to make the long story short, I have been
    confirmed Negative from my recent test in the hospital, just within 2 weeks
    Dr voodoo was able to make me healthy and see reasons to live again, though
    science says there is no cure, i believe God has sent this great man to
    save people, you can all contact him for his medicine, he has presently
    been treating diseases like,CANCER,BLOOD DISEASE,DIABETES,HIV,TYPHOID, and
    many others, you can contact this man on voodoospelltemple66@gmail.com.or
    add him on whatsApp +2348140120719, God
    Bless you sir!

    ReplyDelete

Labels

a. charles catania (1) abstract (1) accident (1) account (1) actualisation (2) actualization (1) addicted to love (1) addiction (1) affordance (5) affordances (15) alternative environments (2) alternative objects (2) an ecological approach to psychology (1) anthony chemero (1) anthrocentrism (1) anti (2) anti-representationalism (3) anti-representationalist (2) applied psychology (1) arguments against representationalism (1) atheism (1) atheist (1) autocatakinetic (1) baby (1) Bargh (4) behaviour (3) bias (1) Big Bang (1) brain in a vat (1) british psychological association (1) canons (1) cartesian dualism (1) chance (1) chaos theory (1) Chemero (1) christian (2) christianity (1) clinical psychology (4) cognition (7) cognitive (3) cognitive psychology (10) cognitive psychology in crisis (5) coincidence (1) computationalism (1) computer (1) computer-gaming (1) conceptual (2) conflict resolution (1) conflicts (1) contrast between computation and ecological strategy (1) created depictions (1) crib (1) critical (1) critical realism (4) cusp catastrophe (1) Daniel (1) daniel fishman (1) Dave (1) definition (3) dependence (2) depicted environments (2) depicted objects (2) depiction (1) depictions (5) dichotomization (1) dichotomized perception (1) dichotomizing (1) direct (2) direct perception (6) Doyen (4) dualism (1) dynamic (3) dynamic systems (2) dynamic systems theory (1) Earp (1) ecological psychology (18) Ed (2) elderly (2) embodied (4) embodied cognition (15) embodied emotion (1) embodied psychology (1) embodiment (1) emotion (1) emotions (1) energy propagation (1) english (1) ensammast (1) entropy (1) entropy debt (1) environment (1) epistemology (5) eric (1) eric charles (8) ethical problems (1) ethics (1) exemplification (1) exist (3) existence (3) experience (2) explanations of (1) field potentials (1) Foddy (1) gaming (1) gay (2) gender neutral pronoun (1) Gibson (3) Gigerenzer (1) Golonka (3) hard sciences (4) harry heft (1) heterogeneity (1) hie (2) hier (2) hier's (1) hierself (1) history of psychology (1) homogeneity (1) homosexuality (1) hovind (1) how multiple integrations make human intelligence (1) human system (1) humanity (1) i (1) I do apologise but (1) I'm (2) illusions (1) individual (1) infant (1) interception (1) introduction (1) issue editor's foreword (1) John Locke (1) joshua w clegg (1) kent (1) league of legends (1) lieberman (1) Linda Smith (1) link (2) logic (1) logical abstraction (1) love (1) lyrics (1) lyrik (1) master thesis (7) matthew (1) mental disorders (1) metafor (1) metaforer (1) method (1) Milgram (1) Milgram misunderstood (1) mobile (1) modeling (1) more than concepts (1) Müller-Lyer illusion (1) natural science of behaviour (1) norman henry anderson (1) Nussbaum (1) obediance to authority (1) objective (3) observation (1) observe (1) occam's razor (1) of (2) online gaming (1) ontology (6) overmedication (1) peace (1) perception (9) personality (1) perspective (5) philosophy (7) philosophy of mind (4) philosophy of psychology (15) philosophy of science (6) positivism (4) potential (1) pragmatic case studies (1) prediction (1) priming (3) programmed depictions (1) psychiatry (1) psychology (8) psychology of philosophy (1) radical embodied cognitive science (6) random (1) reading list (1) realisation (1) realism (2) rECS (4) relationship (3) religion (1) replication (1) replications (1) representation (3) representationalism (7) representationalist (2) representations (3) reproducibility (1) research (2) retraction (2) review of general psychology (8) Savulescu (1) science (5) screen (1) screen-presented (1) self-development (1) self-organisation (1) self-realization (1) Simons (1) simulation (1) social (3) social construction (3) social constructionism (2) soft sciences (4) sports (1) stability (1) stanley messer (1) statistics (1) stereotype (2) stereotypes (1) study (1) subjective (5) Sunday musings (1) sverige (1) system (1) task (1) task analysis (1) taxonomy (1) teaching example (1) text (1) the empirical study of epistemology and phenomenology (1) the fragmented object (1) the self (2) thermodynamic psychology (3) Thermodynamics (1) thesis experiment (1) three laws of information integration (1) thunderf00t (1) thunderfoot (1) traditional psychology (1) unconscious (1) understanding (1) unified psychology (7) universe (1) unless (2) utility (1) virtual (4) virtual affordances (6) virtual agent (2) virtual agents (1) virtual environment (4) virtual environments (1) virtual interception task (2) Wilson (3) world view (1) Wudarczyk (1) Yong (2) you're (2)