Psychological Measurement Needs Units, Ratios, and Real Quantities: A Commentary on Humphry

摘要

Behavioral scientists have struggled with units of measurement for as long as they have struggled with measurement itself. The mindless mantra "normal distributions yield interval scale measurements" continues to be repeated within our university departments today, despite Boring's (1920) dismissal of it more than 9 decades ago. The American Psychological Association's (2010) publication manual demands that psychologists report all physical measurements in the units of the International System of Units (SI) (Bureau International des Poids et Mesures, 2006).