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  3. Measurement in Psychology
  • Cited by 379
Publisher:
Cambridge University Press
Online publication date:
September 2009
Print publication year:
1999
Online ISBN:
9780511490040
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511490040
Subjects:
History of Ideas, Psychology Research Methods and Statistics, History of Psychology, Psychology
Series:
Ideas in Context (53)
Information

Book description

This book traces how such a seemingly immutable idea as measurement proved so malleable when it collided with the subject matter of psychology. It locates philosophical and social influences (such as scientism, practicalism and Pythagoreanism) reshaping the concept and, at the core of this reshaping, identifies a fundamental problem: the issue of whether psychological attributes really are quantitative. It argues that the idea of measurement now endorsed within psychology actually subverts attempts to establish a genuinely quantitative science and it urges a new direction. It relates views on measurement by thinkers such as Holder, Russell, Campbell and Nagel to earlier views, like those of Euclid and Oresme. Within the history of psychology, it considers contributions by Fechner, Cattell, Thorndike, Stevens and Suppes, among others. It also contains a non-technical exposition of conjoint measurement theory and recent foundational work by leading measurement theorist R. Duncan Luce.

Reviews

"Any psychologist engaged in measuring psychological attributes should read this very readable, scholarly book." APA Review of Books

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