The Analytic Cart Before the Ontological Horse: A Response to Michell’s “The Mystery of Missing Psychometric Corpus ”
Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: This response to Michell’s article raises three main concerns. First, there is an important yet unexamined relationship between psychology’s reliance on inferential statistics (NHST) and the “missing corpus” of critiques of psychometricians’ a priori assumption that psychological attributes sustain quantitative structure. Second, framing the problem as one of “visible” (NHST) versus “invisible” (measurement) critiques may mask how commitment to NHST drove psychologists to assume measurement is taking place. Finally, Michell fails to account for the role political theory played in explaining the widespread adoption of psychometric methods, sans scientific evidence.
Author: Mark Garrison
Institution: West Texas A&M University
Language: English
Subfield: General Psychology
Field: Psychology
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: bronze
OpenAlex ID: W7225341976