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Factors and Taxa, Traits and Types, Differences of Degree and Differences in Kind
Author(s) -
Meehl Paul E.
Publication year - 1992
Publication title -
journal of personality
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.082
H-Index - 144
eISSN - 1467-6494
pISSN - 0022-3506
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-6494.1992.tb00269.x
Subject(s) - taxon , consistency (knowledge bases) , psychology , preference , class (philosophy) , ideology , degree (music) , population , personality , social psychology , cognitive psychology , epistemology , ecology , mathematics , artificial intelligence , sociology , computer science , biology , demography , statistics , physics , acoustics , philosophy , politics , political science , law
A taxon is a nonarbitrary class whose existence is conjectured as an empirical question, not a mere semantic convenience. Numerous taxa are known to exist in nature and society (chemical elements, biological species, organic diseases, geological strata, kinds of stars, elementary particles, races, cultures, Mendelizing mental deficiencies, major psychoses, vocations, ideologies, religions). What personality types, if any, occur in the nonpathological population remains to be researched by sophisticated methods, and cannot be settled by fiat or “dimensional” preference. The intuitive concept of taxonicity is to be explicated by a combination of formal‐numerical and causal criteria. Taxometric methods should include consistency tests that provide Popperian risk of strong discorroboration. In social science, latent class methods are probably more useful than cluster algorithms.