The Struggle is Real: Challenges and Solutions in Theory Building

Strong theories are sorely lacking in the applied social sciences, especially in psychology. Elko Fried identifies fundamental problems that are common in social science research and explains how these problems manifest themselves in the literature, impede scientific progress, and contribute to the lack of theory building. He covers a lot of ground: weak theories, the conflation of theoretical and statistical models, problematic inferences, equating latent variables with psychological constructs, and more. As intelligence researchers, we are all too familiar with these kinds of problems; they have been sources of confusion and barriers to progress for over a century. A decade ago, the continued lack of concern over these issues in the field of intelligence became our major concern, and our motivation to develop a new approach. Suffice to say, Elko Fried is music to our ears.