The Long History of Big Data in Psychology

Abstract

Abstract Big data is a commanding presence in psychology today, yet it also has an extensive history within the discipline. This article outlines shifting frameworks of big data from the earliest years of scientific psychology. From the 1880s, American Psychological Association founder G. Stanley Hall’s extensive undertakings with questionnaires were a key means of collecting mass data. Although these efforts produced descriptive data that were difficult to manage, later innovations in scaled questionnaires by psychologists L. L. Thurstone and Rensis Likert rendered mass data numerical and therefore more amenable to synthesis. In the context of ongoing and ever more massive big data initiatives in psychology, this article raises questions about the historical and current place of the individual in big data.