Between numbers and notions - A critique of psychological measurement

Author(s): Smythe, W. E.

Journal/Book: Theor Psychol. 1999; 9: 2455 Teller Rd, Thousand Oaks, CA 91320, USA. Sage Publications Inc. 739-767.

Abstract: When psychologists apply mathematical machinery to psychological ideas, that machinery imposes certain requirements in the linkage of numbers and notions. These impose choices driven by the mathematics and not the psychology. These decisions, forced by the mathematics, induce theoretical issues in the psychology. Attempting a theory-neutral approach to research in psychology, where commitments in response to the options are made unknowingly, thus becomes instead a theory-by-default psychology. This paper begins to catalogue some of these mathematical choices to make them explicit, in order to allow psychologists the opportunity to make explicit theoretical commitments.

Note: Article Essex C, Univ Western Ontario, Dept Appl Math, London, ON N6A 5B7, CANADA

Keyword(s): measurement; methodology; metric; operationism; positivism; quantification; rank order; theory; ATTRACTORS

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