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A Response on Concepts, Laws and Measurement in Social Psychology

Duke University

Michael A. Wallach

Duke University

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.

Key Words: behaviorism • circularity • measurement • operational definition • psychological laws • social psychology

Theory & Psychology, Vol. 11, No. 4, 489-494 (2001)
DOI: 10.1177/0959354301114004


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