Atheory of psychological components—an alternative to "mathematical factors."

Abstract

It is the possession of concepts, motives, and emotions which differentiates individuals in intellectual and personality characteristics. And it is 'universes' of these psychological determinants which 'tests' attempt to sample. These components are, however, so numerous and complex, the experimental study of their origins in the individual so difficult and laborious, their hereditary and environmental conditions so resistant to scientific analysis that some psychologists have sought various types of flight from reality into simplified, albeit fictitious, postulations of the causal determinants of behavior differences. One type of escape has been in the assumption of the existence of large psychological determinants such as 'general intelligence,' 'introversion-extroversion,' and other 'traits.' Serious students of individual differences reject such alleged determinants; since no attempt is made to describe their psychobiological properties, or the fundamental conditions of their emergence in the individual. Another type of escape has recently presented itself, one considerably more dangerous than ' trait-mongering' because it is more artful. I refer to the recent proposals to accept 'mathematical factors' as the determinants of individual differences. Here the escape has been into mathematics, and though it avoids the real problem in no less a degree than does 'trait-mongering,' it has the semblance of being more scientific by virtue of its mathematical content. The purpose of this paper is first, to show that 'mathematical factors' represent yet another ignis fatuus, and second, to present a systematic psychological envisagement of the determinants of individual differences. 425 426 ROBERT C. TRYON ARBITRARY AND NON-PSYCHOLOGICAL CHARACTER OF 'MATHEMATICAL FACTORS'The acceptance of 'mental factors' educed by factor analysis 1 from observed intercorrelations between psychological tests entails the belief in the validity of a certain set of assumptions concerning the determinants of individual differences. The general and broad group factors derived from data under these assumptions have no more validity than the assumptions themselves, and unfortunately, these latter are not verified by psychological or genetic experiment. I have therefore termed such factors ' mathematical factors' in order better to differentiate them from factors subject to experimental variation and study.Before observing the assumptions made by mathematicalfactorists, let us symbolize two current factor theories:The G theory states that individual differences in each of the two abilities x x and x 2 , are determined by one general factor, g, and the specifics. Spearman, its proponent, may admit a few additional non-specific factors. The P theory, where P stands for parsimony, postulates the smallest number of general or group factors plus specifics leading to consistency.

Generality and Reliability of Individual Situations Differences in Discrete Stimulus-Item

“…This paper presents a solution. The findings on eight studies, presented in another paper, demonstrate that individual differences in discrete situations are virtually unpredictable (Tryon, 1973; see also Tryon, 1935Tryon, , 1940. This paper shows that one reason for the low generality of individual differences in responses to an item that measures cognition is an upper bound of correlation set by a buibin ceiling, the item's reliability coefficient.…”

Comparative Cluster Analysis Of Variables And Individuals : Holzinger Abilities And The MMPI

“…This sort of sexual selection would generate a higher correlation among all abilities in the Suburban group than in the Factory, where assortative mating would be more random. A systematic treatment of such environmental vs. genetic "correlation-producing" agencies in the case of abilities is presented elsewhere (Tryon, 1935(Tryon, , 1939.…”

Methods of Reordering the Correlation Matrix to Facilitate Visual Inspection and Preliminary Cluster Analysis

“…The first thing to be noted about factor analysis is what Tryon (1935) said years ago: factor analysis isn't really what most people want. What most people are looking for is a cluster analysis.…”