What if you’re wrong? What if the most effective anti-procrastination technique is tickling your left foot in exactly the right manner, and this works regardless of whether you believe in its efficacy, or even know about it? That (predicated on a correct theory of human motivation) is the kind of stuff we’re looking for.
There is no self-help advice equivalent to a sugar pill. The closest thing to a sugar pill available is known-bad advice, and giving known-bad advice to a control group strikes me as decidedly unethical.
You’re saying that there’s no neutral (non-positive and non-negative) self-help advice? That’s a pretty weird statement to make. Some advice is good, some is bad; why do you suspect a gap at zero? Failing all else, you could refrain from telling the subjects that the study is about self-control and anti-procrastination, just tell them to blindly follow some instructions and measure the effects covertly.
No, I have no experimental protocol ready yet, but have the impudence to insist that we as a community should create one or shut up.
That (predicated on a correct theory of human motivation) is the kind of stuff we’re looking for.
You don’t know what “we” are looking for. There is no one thing “we” are looking for. Some of us may be interested in plausible, attested-to self-help methods, even without experimental support.
Some of us may be interested in plausible, attested-to self-help methods, even without experimental support.
Without experimental support is fine. But without extraordinary support isn’t. Something must make the plausibility of a particular thing stand out, because you can’t be interested in all the 1000 of equally plausible things unless you devote all your time to that.
No, I have no experimental protocol ready yet, but have the impudence to insist that we as a community should create one or shut up.
I certainly agree with the ‘create one’ part of what you’re saying. Not so much the ‘shut up’. Talking about the topic (and in so doing dragging all sorts of relevant knowledge from the community) and also self experimenting has its use. Particularly in as much as it can tell us whether something is worth testing.
I do note that there are an awful lot of posts here (and on Overcoming Bias) which do not actually have controlled studies backing them. Is there a reason why Kaj’s post requires a different standard to be acceptable? (And I ask that non-rhetorically, I can see reasons why you may reasonably do just that.)
What if you’re wrong? What if the most effective anti-procrastination technique is tickling your left foot in exactly the right manner, and this works regardless of whether you believe in its efficacy, or even know about it? That (predicated on a correct theory of human motivation) is the kind of stuff we’re looking for.
You’re saying that there’s no neutral (non-positive and non-negative) self-help advice? That’s a pretty weird statement to make. Some advice is good, some is bad; why do you suspect a gap at zero? Failing all else, you could refrain from telling the subjects that the study is about self-control and anti-procrastination, just tell them to blindly follow some instructions and measure the effects covertly.
No, I have no experimental protocol ready yet, but have the impudence to insist that we as a community should create one or shut up.
You don’t know what “we” are looking for. There is no one thing “we” are looking for. Some of us may be interested in plausible, attested-to self-help methods, even without experimental support.
Without experimental support is fine. But without extraordinary support isn’t. Something must make the plausibility of a particular thing stand out, because you can’t be interested in all the 1000 of equally plausible things unless you devote all your time to that.
I certainly agree with the ‘create one’ part of what you’re saying. Not so much the ‘shut up’. Talking about the topic (and in so doing dragging all sorts of relevant knowledge from the community) and also self experimenting has its use. Particularly in as much as it can tell us whether something is worth testing.
I do note that there are an awful lot of posts here (and on Overcoming Bias) which do not actually have controlled studies backing them. Is there a reason why Kaj’s post requires a different standard to be acceptable? (And I ask that non-rhetorically, I can see reasons why you may reasonably do just that.)