“Are psychological attributes quantitative?” is not an empirical question: Conceptual confusions in the measurement debate

Abstract

Critics of psychological measurement have accused quantitative psychologists of ignoring the empirical hypothesis that psychological phenomena are quantitative (Michell), or have claimed that it is impossible in principle to find out whether psychological phenomena are actually quantitative (Trendler). By drawing on Bennett and Hacker (2003), I argue that both criticisms do not go far enough because they sidestep the fundamental conceptual problem of the measurement debate: It is impossible to give concrete formulations of the question “Are psychological attributes quantitative?” without transgressing the boundaries of meaningful language. Conceptual confusions and questionable philosophical assumptions have contributed to the misguided idea that the quantity of psychological phenomena must or can be demonstrated empirically. First, the measurement debate is characterized by misleading examples and ambiguous terminology. Second, the idea of psychological measurement is inherently Cartesian. In summary, psychological measurement is even more problematic than Michell and Trendler have argued.

Rating scales institutionalise a network of logical errors and conceptual problems in research practices: A rigorous analysis showing ways to tackle psychology’s crises

“…The interpretation of rating-based findings as reflecting "psycho-physical mechanisms" underlying individuals' behaviour (common, e.g., in trait psychology) reflects further 11 The TPS-Paradigm's concepts have also been misunderstood at times as either behaviourist or ontologically dualist (e.g., by Franz, 2021), ignoring their philosophical and theoretical foundation in theories of complex dynamic systems and of complementary relations (Axioms 1, 2). The present improved description may hopefully clarify these misunderstandings.…”

“… 11 The TPS-Paradigm’s concepts have also been misunderstood at times as either behaviourist or ontologically dualist (e.g., by Franz, 2021 ), ignoring their philosophical and theoretical foundation in theories of complex dynamic systems and of complementary relations (Axioms 1, 2). The present improved description may hopefully clarify these misunderstandings.…”

Can we measure effort in cognitive tasks? Examining the application of Additive Conjoint Measurement and the Rasch model

“…The problem however is actually measuring the capacity being used to perform specific cognitive tasks, and the demands of those tasks. There has been debate as to whether such attributes are even quantitative at all that continues to this day (Franz, 2022a(Franz, , 2022bMichell, 2022;Tafreshi, 2022;Trendler, 2022) which if they are not would render the derivation of effort (at least based upon my conceptual definition) impossible 6 . Unlike many physical tasks where operationalisation is fairly trivial and indeed even key assumptions about whether capacity and demands are quantitative are widely accepted, it is not quite so simple for tasks where the underlying capacity that disposes an individual to be able to attempt and perhaps complete the task is not directly observable nor is the demand that the task presents, and indeed it is still an untested assumption as to whether either are quantitative in the first place.…”

Role Based Evaluation of School Principals: Perceptions of Secondary School Students in Punjab

“…Similarly, different students have their own perception for principal of their school. Actually, people try to give their own meaning to the world around them, now how far they are justified in ascribing a certain attribute to any entity is another issue (Franz, 2022). Literature on students' perspective is reviving and students' voice is getting its importance again from the last few decades.…”