When experiments serve little purpose - Misguided research in mainstream psychology

Author(s): Wallach, L.

Journal/Book: Theor Psychol. 1998; 8: 2455 Teller Rd, Thousand Oaks, CA 91320. Sage Publications Inc. 183-194.

Abstract: This paper attempts further to explicate and justify the belief, held by a number of critics of mainstream psychology, that much customary empirical research tells one little that could not have been known without it. Apart from questions of tautology or indeterminate relations to observation, many hypotheses are derivable from propositions that are unfalsifiable because they cannot be tested without relying on conceptualizations which imply the propositions themselves. Experiments that serve no purpose beyond the operationalization of such hypotheses are a misguided enterprise.

Note: Article Wallach MA, Duke Univ, Dept Psychol, Durham,NC 27708 USA

Keyword(s): empirical test; epistemology of psychology; falsifiability; hypothesis testing; research presuppositions; tautology; HYPOTHESES; JUDGMENTS

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