Turns out there are a lot of people out there who think freudian typos are real. Real in the sense of revealing secret or subconscious thoughts or feelings or something along those lines. Maybe so.
I tend to be skeptical of everything. Perhaps too much so. About freudian typos, I'd like to see some research. Is there any? Right off the top of my head I can't think of any way to research it. But there are a lot of people out there who are a lot smarter than me. (Smarter than I?)
Here's my hesitation..... Just while typing what I've typed here so far, I've made about a dozen typos. Mostly they are things like the one I just did at the beginning of this sentence: typing "Mostyl" instead of Mostly." Now "Mostyl" doesn't mean anything, so I just fix it and move on. All my other typos in this post so far have been like that (I just typed "loke" instead of "like.") Eventually in the midst of my typical shower of typos, one will happen to spell something or sound like something. The Freudian Typo hypothesis would have me pick that one out and assume it means something, when the 30 other typos I just made ("madew" instead of "made") didn't seem like anything, so I just ignore them. Calling the ones that seem interesting freudian typos sounds a lot to me like the logical fallacy called "selection bias." You notice things that seem to fit a hypothesis (left out the "o" and had to go back and put it in) but ignore ("ifnore") the ones that are no fun, even though they are far more numerous ("numetous"). In fact, in this entire post (oops... there's one... "pose" instead of "post", meaning that by pretending to know ("knw") anything about this, I'm posing as an expert, or at least a thoughtful person) I've now made only one typo that seemed to be vaguely freudian.
What am I missing? When I googled it (freudian typos), I saw an article in a psychology journal about it, but I would have had to pay $7 to read it so I didn't.
I'll keep looking for information. I do not deny it or write it off, but as I said, I'm skeptical.
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2 comments:
Ok, first, you are a really bad typist, my friend. ;-)
Second, I'm not saying I "believe in" Freudian typos, but, if one buys the idea of Freudian slips verbally, then why not while typing? After all, the belief in the concept a Freudian slip isn't debunked by comparing it to how many utterances are not Freudian, right?
Could our subconscious be focused on something and choose to manifest itself through our fingertips without our polite request? Seems reasonable. To a point. But anything can be skewed.
But you already knew that, didn't you, Mr. Conspiracy Theorist?
jb
Yes, I'm a terrible (terrivle) typist. And I'm sure you're right, at least (as you say) up to a point. I don't understand "the subconscious" very well. It doesn't readily lend itself to rational analysis. How 'bout that for a news flash!
My problem is that I'm not much better speaking than I am typing. I tend to get going too fast, and slur words and mis-speak. So I have lots of verbal slips that are non-Freudian. Which doesn't debunk anything, but does cause me to have the same hesitancy about the concept of Freudian slips (a concept which I do not deny sounds entirely reasonable). (Aren't you glad that I stopped cataloging typos?) ;-)
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