From Hypothesis-Testing Psychology to Procedure-Testing Psychologic

Abstract

Psychologists do not analyze the conceptual relations between their independent and dependent variables. Hence, they fail to recognize that the plausibility of their hypotheses stems from the conceptual relatedness of the variables. The outcome is research that appears to test hypotheses but really tests only procedures, because the hypotheses involve conceptually related variables and are necessarily true. Domains in which this has been demonstrated are discussed. Psychologic is an axiomatic system intended to formulate the psychologically relevant conceptual relationships embedded in language and is an instrument for describing, explaining, predicting, and controlling intrapersonal and interpersonal processes.