DEBATE
Where is the
Evidence?
By Bruce Grimley
The meaning of your
communication is the
response you receive
I
suppose as a psychologist I naturally am However being aware of sensory evidence go on to describe exactly what psychologists
fascina
ted by what works and what does and subjecting such sensory evidence to often do find; support for a weak version of
not work in the endeavour to find out how statistical analysis for me does not seem to be the hypothesis. In this hypothetical case the
we can improve the quality of life for ourselves mutually exclusive…… the important thing, finding was, as a group, the NLP strategy out
and for others. However in an age of spin, how surely is to get the experimental design correct. performed both the control group and the
can we ever know? One answer is statistics; it is Andy Bradbury on his web site FAQ’s phonics group. However what is not supported
certainly an answer which psychologists turn to shows how some people when researching is the strong version of the hypothesis and
over and over again. eye accessing cues for example slip up. This that is all members of the NLP group will
I remember having this discussion with is no big deal, and in my experience is just spell words perfectly. What the results of
John Grinder as I was discussing my PhD how psychology works. The key though is to this imagined research actually show is that
with him last year. John got quite emotional acknowledge the design flaw and conduct an some people in the NLP group spelt words
and said words to the effect “why can’t these improved piece of research. incorrectly, and also that some people in the
psychologists believe the evidence of their own Carmen Bostic St Clair and John control and the phonics group spelt more words
senses?” I did not respond as I was processing Grinder(2001:87), do tackle this subject. correctly than those in the NLP group.
the fact that John seemed quite agitated around They imagine a well trained psychologist If a researcher wished to re-define their
this area. validating the NLP spelling strategy. They research in the hope of a “better” result this is
4 | Winter 2009/10 - rapport
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