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I’m reading down this particular thread and it seems to be dismissing the notion that we can have any meaningful psychological concepts at all. I am worried th

I’m reading down this particular thread and it seems to be dismissing the notion that we can have any meaningful psychological concepts at all. I am worried that even though skepticism is good, skepticism from people outside of a field can lead into a downward spiral of rejecting all conclusions made by serious practitioners of that field. How many other endeavors would be impossible to undertake if people constantly disregarded the methods and practices of researchers and specialists within these disciplines? At what point are we merely finding ourselves skeptical of research which contradicts our preconceptions? How do we know when we are going too far in picking apart methodology that we don’t even understand that well?

YeGoblynQueenne 7y ago
>> I’m reading down this particular thread and it seems to be dismissing the notion that we can have any meaningful psychological concepts at all. Not at all, at least not on my part. I think psychology is important. I am not convinced by the methodology though.
- codyb 7y ago
  I wonder how they measured them. Is it possible with large enough sample sizes the average values would probably be about right? Sort of like that idea if you get 10,000 people to guess how many beans are in a jar, the average will get closer and closer to the actual value as you go?
- JamesBarney 7y ago
  The methodology of the field of psychology?
  - YeGoblynQueenne 7y ago
    Sorry, that was a bit vague. What I mean about "methodology" is the current trend of quantifying human personality traits, like that damned "agreeableness". I understand the aspiration to quantify the human personality (although I also personally find it a little off-putting) but it seems to me that it is very difficult to do with the tools with which it is being attempted. In fact, I think it's impossible to do what psychologists are trying to do, i.e. to do statistics on the human personality. Because the things you are trying to measure are impossible to define clearly and observe objectively since they have no physical substance. So why do it at all? Why does psychology _need_ to have statistics on personality traits, when they are not really personality traits but complicated proxies for things we think may be representative of personality traits? Wouldn't the same effort be better spent on a different project? Can't psychology be taken seriously as a science without trying to do maths with things that don't really exist?
AmericanChopper 7y ago
Psychology makes remarkably weak predictions as far as “science” goes. So if you’re going to dismiss it when it’s politically inconvenient, you should probably dismiss the entire field all together.
- JamesBarney 7y ago
  Personality psychometrics and IQ tests are quite literally the most replicated and strongest findings in psychology. If you dismiss it, you are very literally dismissing the entire field.
  - AmericanChopper 7y ago
    This is completely true. But even the most robust theories in psychology are particularly weak at making predictions. To write the whole field off as having little scientific merit would be at the very least a defensible position to take. All I’m saying is it’s not reasonable to take such a stance selectively against findings that you personally disagree with.
    - tomp 7y ago
      Same in finance, but there are still people making billions in statistically significant ways. Humans are complicated and unpredictable. Any field with 99% noise 1% signal requires different methodologies compared to, say, physics and computer vision ML. But you can still make some inferences and predictions (which, even if 100% "correct" will still only predict the 1% of signal, not the 99% of noise).

YeGoblynQueenne 7y ago

>> I’m reading down this particular thread and it seems to be dismissing the notion that we can have any meaningful psychological concepts at all. Not at all, at least not on my part. I think psychology is important. I am not convinced by the methodology though.

codyb 7y ago
I wonder how they measured them. Is it possible with large enough sample sizes the average values would probably be about right? Sort of like that idea if you get 10,000 people to guess how many beans are in a jar, the average will get closer and closer to the actual value as you go?
JamesBarney 7y ago
The methodology of the field of psychology?
- YeGoblynQueenne 7y ago
  Sorry, that was a bit vague. What I mean about "methodology" is the current trend of quantifying human personality traits, like that damned "agreeableness". I understand the aspiration to quantify the human personality (although I also personally find it a little off-putting) but it seems to me that it is very difficult to do with the tools with which it is being attempted. In fact, I think it's impossible to do what psychologists are trying to do, i.e. to do statistics on the human personality. Because the things you are trying to measure are impossible to define clearly and observe objectively since they have no physical substance. So why do it at all? Why does psychology _need_ to have statistics on personality traits, when they are not really personality traits but complicated proxies for things we think may be representative of personality traits? Wouldn't the same effort be better spent on a different project? Can't psychology be taken seriously as a science without trying to do maths with things that don't really exist?

AmericanChopper 7y ago

Psychology makes remarkably weak predictions as far as “science” goes. So if you’re going to dismiss it when it’s politically inconvenient, you should probably dismiss the entire field all together.

JamesBarney 7y ago
Personality psychometrics and IQ tests are quite literally the most replicated and strongest findings in psychology. If you dismiss it, you are very literally dismissing the entire field.
- AmericanChopper 7y ago
  This is completely true. But even the most robust theories in psychology are particularly weak at making predictions. To write the whole field off as having little scientific merit would be at the very least a defensible position to take. All I’m saying is it’s not reasonable to take such a stance selectively against findings that you personally disagree with.
  - tomp 7y ago
    Same in finance, but there are still people making billions in statistically significant ways. Humans are complicated and unpredictable. Any field with 99% noise 1% signal requires different methodologies compared to, say, physics and computer vision ML. But you can still make some inferences and predictions (which, even if 100% "correct" will still only predict the 1% of signal, not the 99% of noise).