Behavioral and Brain Sciences



Open Peer Commentary
Chow: Statistical significance

Four reasons why the science of psychology is still in trouble


Kim J. Vicente a1
a1 Cognitive Engineering Laboratory, Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario M5S 3G8, Canada benfica@mie.utoronto.ca www.ie.utoronto.ca/IE/HF/kim/home.html

Abstract

Chow's monograph exhibits four prototypical symptoms of psychology's enduring scientific crisis: (a) it equates empirical science with statistical analysis; (b) it settles for qualitative rather than quantitative theories; (c) it ignores the role of ecological validity in the generalizability of theories; and (d) it puts rigid adherence to arbitrary but documentable rules over critical thinking about the meaning of results.