Grandparent Research - Revisited

Grandparent Research - Revisited

Even More Obvious

Notice that hindsight bias further aggrevates the grandparent effect. It’s not simply the case that research often demonstrates the blindingly obvious. As we’ve seen, once people know the answer, they are convinced that they knew it all along. So the price paid for doing empirical research is three-fold:

the actual cost of doing the research (including time, effort, resources)

the indignity of confirming that 95% of human intuitions are correct, and

the ridicule from people—who having learned of your results—will wrongly believe that they knew it all along.

If you choose to engage in empirical research, be prepared that people will think you are naive and that you are involved in a colossal waste of effort.

In the arts especially, we place a premium on imagination and creativity. So among our arts colleagues, the majority of empirical research is likely to be viewed as trite, dull, and unimaginative –the very antithesis of what we expect in arts scholarship.