A fandom shitstorm - redux

[filthgoblin]

I heard about this questionnaire initially through perdiccas, promoted through crack_van [though the community creator has since expressed deep regret at ever having gotten involved]. The questionnaire itself [questions listed in two parts here and here] was thought by some to be skeevy. I can see that argument for that, but I was more concerned about the fact that not only was it poorly worded and constructed, but didn't seem to offer any way in which to test the "cognitive neuroscience" theories that the researchers were positing. How can anyone claim to draw conclusions about cognition and neurocortical processing from a questionnaire? You'd need to do some kind of hands-on studies with neurological testing equipment to do that.

Fans objected, politely at first, then with increasing vehemence. The shitstorm peaked around about the time that the lead researcher suggested that women who enjoy slash fiction are neurocognitively the same as men who get off on transsexual/transgender pornography. Um, whut?

This article explains in a much more succinct, eloquent and cogent way than I could why fans were intensely irritated by two researchers who are admittedly outsiders to fandom and find the concept of fannish ways "fascinating". It also has some really interesting links to reactions from fans on LJ and DW to having been approached by them. I'd also recommend this post that says really clearly why fans do not want to be subject to an non-participatory anthropological or poorly constructed neurocognitive study by people who just want to point and stare.

Comments

[filthgoblin.livejournal.com]

I think that was my point really. Not that the questionnare wasn't valid as a tool for collecting information - although the researchers' clear disregard for data validity and glee they expressed that they had managed to chalk up a lot of completed responses rather being concerned that they were clearly being polljacked worried me. It was rather that their research method, as you said, wouldn't yield the results they claimed to be after. You rightly pointed out that without some kind of physiological monitoring, such as fMRI, they would be unable to draw any conclusions about how the neurophysiology of study subjects is affected by what they read. And yes, cognition and neurophysiological response are two different things.

I did the test and was quite surprised. I've always been told that I'm quite an empathetic person and considered myself to be so. However, my answers on the questionnaire have me leaning more heavily on the side of systematising which, given the state of my house and my desk at work, surprises me! Though in some ways it does make sense because I can be somewhere bordering on autistic when it comes to having my routine disturbed, I do tend to notice patterns in things and I am extremely pedantic about grammar and language - as you might have been able to tell by my focus on the question construction in the questionnaire over all things in this case. If I'm reading anything that has poor grammar, or is constructed in such a way that it is unclear or misleading, it irritates me so much that I can't continue.

More than anything though, I agree that it seems obvious that they way in which they went about this would be guaranteed to put people's backs up. I'm guessing these guys would have scored quite low on EQ and are probably still blithely unaware why everything turned so nasty.

[samstjames.livejournal.com]

Yeah obviously a high sq doesn't automatically mean that you're not chaotic. You're talking to someone here with an sq of 72 and an eq of 29, and my desk and my room usually look as if something just exploded in the middle of it.

[filthgoblin.livejournal.com]

I guess I just tend to imagine that people who are systematic are also organised. That is absolutely not me.

I'm pretty balanced, actually with an EQ of 47 and an SQ of 56. I'm slightly below average EQ for a woman and slightly higher than average on SQ. Eh *shrugs* It's interesting, but it doesn't define me.