Qualifies· weakMPI-E013
Watt & Tierney 2013: MPI's first field test returns null, underpowered
- what the source states
- A three-year, sixteen-country collaborative study — described by its authors as the first systematic test of the MPI — used a waiting-list design on spontaneous RSPK-type cases, predicting that cases viewed and documented in detail would show reduced anomalous experiences relative to undocumented cases. Of 43 referrals, 14 cases completed the study (6 documented). "Analysis of the two formal study hypotheses did not provide support for the predictions of the MPI, and it was concluded that this aspect of the research was of limited success due to low statistical power."
- what we infer
- The only attempt to test MPI's documentation-suppresses-phenomena prediction outside the laboratory. As evidence it is nearly mute — 14 cases cannot decide anything — but it demonstrates that the model's field predictions are operationalizable, which matters for MPI-C010.
- limitations
- Severely underpowered (14 completed cases against the planned sample).
- Referral flow collapsed for documented sociological reasons (rise of amateur ghost-hunting groups), confounding the recruitment base.