[Jeff Vancouver 940913]
Well, I am back from giving my paper and visiting family. Add a week of
preping for classes and the beginning of the term folderall and it comes to
about a month off the net. That is a lot of catching up. I have been
skimming the posts and have noticed a couple of things I should probably
address.
First, the Ayn Rand thread was interesting. Upshot, she is very close to PCT
in principle, but errors on some of the details. This is the basic argument I
have been making to the Locke et al camp.
Second, regarding the work of Lord and associates. One of Lord's major errors
is in placing a decision mechanism (function) between the comparator and the
output function. It is an attempt on his part to include a DME within control
theory. I give him credit for trying. Choices are made, incorporating that
into the control theory model is paramount on my list of things to do. He
took a stab at it.
Third, the issue of the use of statistics (conventional behavioral science
methods) continues to bother many on the net. I had been advised to read
Runkel and have gotten most of the way through it. There was one particular
figure that hit home to the argument. Runkel discussed a "drawing" program
that required the subject to make slight deviations with the mouse around a
circle to make a cursor draw whatever is was the subject wanted. He noted
that an examination of the circle or the deviations about that circle told one
very little (or nothing) about the desired drawing. He showed a picture of a
square with a triangle in it and a circle. Both were jagged, but their shapes
were clear. He pointed out that if one examined the circle (which represent
the actions of the individual) or the deviations from the circle, one would
never be able to derive the square and triangle (which was the actual goal of
the subject). A very interesting point, because much of psychology spends its
time examining the deviations from the circle, thus missing the point of the
behavior.
However, the square and triangle were not very well drawn. That is, the
lines were not straight, but jagged. Runkel was not arguing that the desire
of the subject was to draw a jagged square and triangle, it just happened that
the mechanism for drawing was fairly difficult for the subject, so the results
was jagged. For us in the applied side of psychology, the jaggedness of those
squares and triangles is exactly the error we wish to study. We are
interested in individual differences, training, or devices that related to the
jaggedness of results. It is extremely important that we study the jaggedness
of the squares and triangle and not the circle, but jaggedness we study.
Finally, to continue on the psychology as useless thread, all I am trying to
say when it comes to using instruments to gather information for making
selections, is that the information will reduce the probability of making a
type I or type II error or both. That probability may be small, but it is
type I or type II or both that we all abhor (which is worse depends on the
decision and who one asks).
I also thought of a set of psychological experiments that many would not think
useless or dangerous (although McPhail beat me to it with the Sherif studies).
Specifically, the studies that Thurgood Marshall used to argue the Brown v.
Topeka BoE case. They were the studies were the black children identified
white dolls as better than the black dolls. He used those studies to argue
that the black children's self-esteem (self-concept in today's parlance) was
lower than whites.
I also always thought that Asch's conformity experiments were very
interesting.
The paper I mentioned early was a presentation (15 minutes) at the Academy of
Management Conference on fitting persons and organizations using a
systems/cybernetic/control theory framework. I see those as subsets of each
other. Anyway, 15 minutes is not long enough to say much and I did not get
much of a response from the audience. The organizational theorists were more
receptive than the organizational behaviorists. The discussant claimed to
like it - "after getting through the jargon" - I had terms like input
function, equifinality, and requisite variety in it.
I did interact with others at the conference who were sympathetic with PCT or
some variation (most have only been exposed to Carver & Scheier, Lord, or some
other "heretic"). I was exposed to more on action theory (aka, German
psychology), too much TOTE, but some nice stuff. I chatted with Locke, asking
him if it bothered him that his performance cycle (a positive feedback loop)
had no negative loop (in the systems dynamics sense). He did not seem to
care.
Anyway, back to trying to get tenure.
Jeff
(P.S. I got the closed loop articles but have not read them yet, thanks)