Quantitative methods in psychology: inevitable and useless

• Main Author: Aaro Toomela
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Frontiers Media S.A. 2010-07-01
• Series: Frontiers in Psychology
• Subjects: Mathematics; causality; epistemology; quantitative methodology; constructive experiment
• Online Access: http://journal.frontiersin.org/Journal/10.3389/fpsyg.2010.00029/full

Science begins with the question, what do I want to know? Science becomes science, however, only when this question is justified and the appropriate methodology is chosen for answering the research question. Research question should precede the other questions; methods should be chosen according to the research question and not vice versa. Modern quantitative psychology has accepted method as primary; research questions are adjusted to the methods. For understanding thinking in modern quantitative psychology, two epistemologies should be distinguished: structural-systemic that is based on Aristotelian thinking, and associative-quantitative that is based on Cartesian-Humean thinking. The first aims at understanding the structure that underlies the studied processes; the second looks for identification of cause-effect relationships between the events with no possible access to the understanding of the structures that underlie the processes. Quantitative methodology in particular as well as mathematical psychology in general, is useless for answering questions about structures and processes that underlie observed behaviors. Nevertheless, quantitative science is almost inevitable in a situation where the systemic-structural basis of behavior is not well understood; all sorts of applied decisions can be made on the basis of quantitative studies. In order to proceed, psychology should study structures; methodologically, constructive experiments should be added to observations and analytic experiments.