Sage Journals: Discover world-class research

Abstract

While appreciating Kimble's (2001) praise of our paper (Wallach & Wallach, 2001), we argue against his reduction of mental states to behavioral dispositions. Crandall and Schaller (2001) make five points in criticism of our argument that much research in social psychology is plagued by circularity. We show that their first point is based on a misunderstanding, that their third point is irrelevant, and that their last two points do not attempt to answer our argument. This leaves their second point as Crandall and Schaller's only actual counterargument—namely that confidence in a measure for a construct is independent of confidence in the construct's relationships to other constructs. We show this claim of independence to be false.

Keywords

behaviorism circularity measurement operational definition psychological laws social psychology

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Crandall, C.S. , & Schaller, M. (2001). Social psychology and the pragmatic conduct of science. Theory & Psychology, 11(4), 479-488.

Higgins, E.T. , & Kruglanski, A.W. (1996). Preface. In E.T. Higgins & A.W. Kruglanski (Eds.), Social psychology: Handbook of basic principles (pp. vii-viii). New York: Guilford.

Judd, C.M. , & McClelland, G.H. (1998). Measurement. In D.T. Gilbert , S.T. Fiske , & G. Lindzey (Eds.), The handbook of social psychology: Vol. I (4th ed., pp. 180-232). New York: McGraw-Hill and Oxford University Press.

Kimble, G.A. (1996). Psychology: The hope of a science. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Kimble, G.A. (2001). Three endorsements and a question: Commentary on the Wallachs' paper. Theory & Psychology, 11(4), 475-478.

Suppe, F. (1977). The search for philosophic understanding of scientific theories. In F. Suppe (Ed.), The structure of scientific theories (2nd ed., pp. 1-241). Urbana: University of Illinois Press.

Wallach, L. , & Wallach, M.A. (2001). Experiments in social psychology: Science or self-deception? Theory & Psychology, 11(4), 451-473.

A Response on Concepts,Laws and Measurement in Social Psychology

Abstract

Keywords

Get full access to this article

References