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Clarifying the role of mathematics in theory development

Authors
Chris Donkin
LMU Munich ~ Psychology
Aba Szollosi
UNSW
Jared Hotaling
The University of Illinois - Urbana-Champaign ~ Psychology
Abstract

Though formal implementations of theories can be useful, they are not necessarily so. So, while a good theory is one that lends itself to being implemented formally, a "good" model does not guarantee a good theory. The scope of what can be learned from a mathematical model is based on the extent to which that model is implied by its motivating theory, and, therefore, what implications the failure of a model has for that theory. We discuss common use of mathematics in psychology, such as model fitting and model selection, with these limitations in mind.

Tags

Keywords

Symposium

Topics

Theory development
Discussion
New

Hi Chris, I really liked your discussion of non-solutions! We need more awareness of non-solutions.

Iris van Rooij 0 comments

Very clear talk! I am very curious what you think about the relative usefulness of mathematics in finding the implications of theories compared to other methods. For example, I have been working on the debating techniques practiced by Tibetan monks (see some posters presented here) and they use a kind of Socratic reasoning to find the implications ...

Dr. Marieke Van Vugt 1 comment

Thank you for the interesting talk! I think one important point which is worth emphasizing (sort of a corollary to the precision aspect of mathematical theory in the talk) is the important of mathematics as a vehicle for communication. By developing a mathematical theory, this provide an unambiguous efficient way to communicate complex ideas in an...

Prof. Richard Golden 0 comments
"models" vs. "theories" Last updated 4 years ago

How is it any different from the old saying--maybe I am actually just making this up--that in social sciences, we only have (mathematical) models of "qualitative" theories, whereas natural sciences have "hard" (mathematical) theories? Maybe my question is: is there an example of a mathematical theory in social sciences that satisfies the condition...

Dr. Eric Cosyn 1 comment
Cite this as:

Donkin, C., Szollosi, A., & Hotaling, J. (2020, July). Clarifying the role of mathematics in theory development. Paper presented at Virtual MathPsych/ICCM 2020. Via mathpsych.org/presentation/112.