Wanted-A Good Cookbook1
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WANTED-A GOOD COOKBOOK1 PAUL E. MEEHL Minnesota Center jor Philosophy of Science NCE upon a time there was a young which), you are probably suffering from a slight fellow who, as we say, was "vocationally case of bias. Although I have not done a factor O maladjusted." He wasn't sure just what analysis with these two stories in the matrix, my the trouble was, but he knew that he wasn't happy clinical judgment tells me that a person's spon- in his work. So, being a denizen of an urban, taneous reactions to them reflect his position in sophisticated, psychologically oriented culture, he the perennial conflict between the tough-minded concluded that what he needed was some pro- and the tender-minded, between those for whom fessional guidance. He went to the counseling the proper prefix to the word "analysis" is "factor" bureau of a large midwestern university (accord- and those for whom it is "psycho," between the ing to some versions of the tale, it was located on groups that Lord Russell once characterized as the the banks of a great river), and there he was inter- "simple-minded" and the "muddle-headed." In a viewed by a world-famous vocational psychologist. recent book (10), I have explored one major facet When the psychologist explained that it would first of this conflict, namely the controversy over the be necessary to take a 14-hour battery of tests, the relative merits of clinical and statistical methods young man hesitated a little; after all, he was of prediction. Theoretical considerations, together still employed at his job and 14 hours seemed like with introspections as to my own mental activities quite a lot of time. "Oh, well," said the great as a psychotherapist, led me to conclude that the psychologist reassuringly, "don't worry about that. clinician has certain unique, practically undupli- If you're too busy, you can arrange to have my cable powers by virtue of being himself an organ- assistant take these tests jor you. I don't care who ism like his client; but that the domain of straight takes them, just so long as they come out in prediction would not be a favorable locus for quantitative form." displaying these powers. Survey of a score of Lest I, a Minnesotan, do too great violence to empirical investigations in which the actual pre- your expectations by telling this story on the dust- dictive efficiency of the two methods could be bowl empiricism with which we Minnesotans are compared, gave strong confirmation to this latter traditionally associated, let me now tell you a theoretical expectation. After reading these true story having the opposite animus. Back in studies, it almost looks as if the first rule to follow the days when we were teaching assistants, my in trying to predict the subsequent course of a colleague MacCorquodale was grading a young student's or patient's behavior is carefully to avoid lady's elementary laboratory report on an ex- talking to him, and that the second rule is to avoid periment which involved a correlation problem. thinking about him! At the end of an otherwise flawless report, this Statisticians (and rat men) with castrative in- particular bobbysoxer had written "The correla- tent toward clinicians should beware of any tempta- tion was seventy-five, with a standard error of tion to overextend these findings to a generaliza- ten, which is significant. However, I do not think tion that "clinicians don't actually add anything." these variables are related." MacCorquodale wrote Apart from the clinician's therapeutic efforts— a large red "FAIL" and added a note: "Dear Miss the power of which is a separate issue and also Fisbee: The correlation coefficient was devised ex- a matter of current dispute—a glance at a sample pressly to relieve you of all responsibility for de- of clinical diagnostic documents, such as routine ciding whether these two variables are related." psychological reports submitted in a VA installa- If you find one of these anecdotes quite funny, tion, shows that a kind of mixed predictive-descrip- and the other one rather stupid (I don't care tive statement predominates which is different 1 Presidential Address, Midwestern Psychological As- from the type of gross prediction considered in sociation, Chicago, April 29, 19SS. the aforementioned survey. (I hesitate to pro- 263 264 THE AMERICAN PSYCHOLOGIST pose a basic distinction here, having learned that these considerations to make inferences. Where's proposing a distinction between two classes of the problem?" The problem is, whether or not concepts is a sure road to infamy.) Nevertheless, this is the most efficient way to do it. We ordi- I suggest that we distinguish between: (a) the narily do it this way; in fact, the practice is so clinician's predictions of such gross, outcome-type, universal that most clinicians find it shocking, "administrative" dimensions as recovery from psy- if not somehow sinful, to imagine any other. We chosis, survival in a training program, persistence feed in the test data and let that rusty digital in therapy, and the like; and (b) a rather more computer in our heads go to work until a para- detailed and ambitious enterprise roughly char- graph of personality description emerges. It re- acterizable as "describing the person." It might quires no systematic study, although some quanti- be thought that a always presupposes b, but a tative data have begun to appear in the literature moment's reflection shows this to be false; since (2, 3. 6, 7, 8, 9). to realize that there is a con- there are empirical prediction systems in which the siderable element of vagueness, hit-or-miss, and sole property ascribed to the person is the dis- personal judgment involved in this approach. Be- position to a predicted gross outcome. A very cause explicit rules are largely lacking, and hence considerable fraction of the typical clinical psy- the clinician's personal experience, skill, and cre- chologist's time seems to be spent in giving tests ative artistry play so great a role, I shall refer to or semitests, the intention being to come out with this time-honored procedure for generating per- some kind of characterization of the individual. sonality descriptions from tests as the rule-oj- In part this characterization is "phenotypic," thumb method. attributing such behavior-dispositions as "hos- I wish now to contrast this rule-of-thumb method tile," "relates poorly," "loss in efficiency," "man- with what I shall call the cookbook method. In ifest anxiety," or "depression"; in part it is the cookbook method, any given configuration "genotypic," inferring as the causes of the pheno- (holists please note—I said "configuration," not type certain inner events, states, or structures, e.g., "sum"!) of psychometric data is associated with "latent n Aggression," "oral-dependent attitudes," each facet (or configuration) of a personality de- "severe castration anxiety," and the like. While scription, and the closeness of this association is the phenotypic-genotypic question is itself deserv- explicitly indicated by a number. This number ing of careful methodological analysis, in what fol- need not be a correlation coefficient—its form will lows I shall use the term "personality description" depend upon what is most appropriate to the to cover both phenotypic and genotypic inferences, circumstances. It ma)' be a correlation, or merely i.e., statements of all degrees of internality or an ordinary probability of attribution, or (as in theoreticalness. I shall also assume, while recog- the empirical study I shall report upon later) an nizing that at least one group of psychologists has average Q-sort placement. Whatever its form, made an impressive case to the contrary, that the the essential point is that the transition from psy- description of a person is a worthwhile stage in chometric pattern to personality description is an the total clinical process. Granted, then, that we automatic, mechanical, "clerical" kind of task, pro- wish to use tests as a means to securing a descrip- ceeding by the use of explicit rules set forth in the tion of the person, how shall we go about it? Here cookbook. I am quite aware that the mere pros- we sit, with our Rorschach and Multiphasic results pect of such a method will horrify some of you; spread out before us. From this mess of data in my weaker moments it horrifies me. All I can we have to emerge with a characterization of the say is that many clinicians are also horrified by person from whose behavior these profiles are a the cookbook method as applied in the crude pre- highly abstracted, much-reduced distillation. How diction situation; whereas the studies reported to to proceed? date indicate this horror to be quite groundless Some of you are no doubt wondering, "What is (10, Chap. 8). As Fred Skinner once said, some the fellow talking about? You look at the pro- men are less curious about nature than about files, you call to mind what the various test di- the accuracy of their guesses (15, p. 44). Our mensions mean for dynamics, you reflect on other responsibility to our patients and to the taxpayer patients you have seen with similar patterns, you obliges us to decide between the rule-of-thumb and think of the research literature; then you combine the cookbook methods on the basis of their em- WANTED—A GOOD COOKBOOK 265 pirically demonstrated efficiency, rather than upon Example: A test correctly identifies 80 per cent of brain- which one is more exciting, more "dynamic," more damaged patients at the expense of only 15 per cent false like what psychiatrists do, or more harmonious positives, in a neuropsychiatric population where one- tenth of all patients are damaged.