Editorial: Challenges to Mean-Based Analysis in Psychology: The Contrast Between Individual People and General Science

Frontiers in Psychology

Craig P. Speelman¹ 

关键词: mean;    average;    variability;    inference;    groups;    individuals;   

DOI  :  10.3389/fpsyg.2016.01234

学科分类：心理学（综合）

来源: Frontiers

【 摘 要 】

In a recent paper we (Speelman and McGann) argued that psychology's reliance on data analysis methods that are based on group averages has resulted in a science of group phenomena that may be misleading about the nature of and reasons for individual behavior. The paper highlighted a tension between a science in search of general laws on the one hand, and the individual, variable, and diverse nature of human behavior on the other. Two central traditions in psychology are challenged by this tension: (1) data is collected from a large number of people and distilled into a handful of parameters that reflect the middle of a distribution of scores and the average variation around that mid-point, and (2) theories are developed to explain the average performance of the group. The disjunction between group-based measurements and the actual psychology of individual people raises specific concerns in both research and applied professional domains of psychology. For instance, a clinician who reads in a report that Therapy A leads to a significantly greater improvement in depression than Therapy B might be tempted to adopt Therapy A in her practice. But what are the odds that Therapy A will be the best option for the next depressed client to walk in her door? What does an observation that, on average, people find it easier to identify letters presented on a screen when they are presented at the end of a word than when presented in isolation actually tell us about the specific cognitive processes occurring in specific people's activities? Are we justified in interpreting this result as reflecting something about the way every person's mind processes letters and words? To what extent should we explore the prevalence of this pattern of responding before we start making claims about cognitive mechanisms that are general to all humans?

【 授权许可】

CC BY