Measurement in psychology : a critical history of a methodological concept

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Title:

Author:

Michell, Joel.

ISBN:

9780521621205

9780521021517

Personal Author:

Michell, Joel.

Publication Information:

New York : Cambridge University Press, 1999.

Physical Description:

xvi, 246 p. ; 24 cm.

Series:

Ideas in context

Series Title:

Ideas in context

General Note:

First paperback version 2005.

Contents:

1. Numerical data and the meaning of measurement -- 2. Quantitative psychology's intellectual inheritance -- 3. Quantity, number and measurement in science -- 4. Early psychology and the quantity objection -- 5. Making the representational theory of measurement -- 6. The status of psychophysical measurement -- 7. A definition made to measure -- 8. Quantitative psychology and the revolution in measurement theory.

Subject Term:

Psychometrics -- History.

Psychology -- Methodology -- History.

Electronic Access:

Table of contents http://www.loc.gov/catdir/toc/cam022/98039566.html
Publisher description http://www.loc.gov/catdir/description/cam029/98039566.html

Copies:

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Library	Material Type	Item Barcode	Shelf Number	Copy	Status
Searching... 1:IIEMSA	1:GEN-BOOK	33168020382202	150/.287 M623M 1999	1	Searching... Unknown

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Summary

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.