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BananaBananaBa t1_ituuqu1 wrote

Reply to comment by ShitPostGuy in what is the Difference between fluid intelligence and creativity? by New_Rush4189

Any references for the fact that psychometrics are only correlational and it is controversial because of that?

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ShitPostGuy t1_ituyrok wrote

It’s definitionally correlational since you cannot (ethically) make changes in someone’s brain and test the resulting changes in their personality/cognition to prove causation. One can only say things like “there is correlation between the trait of impulsivity, as measured by personality test xyz, and lower activity levels in the prefrontal cortex.”

As for it being controversial, a quick Google search will get you a host of articles.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2779444/

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0191886921008254

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.581448/full

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BananaBananaBa t1_itx7r6f wrote

psychometrics is a much larger concept than needing change in the brain for an interventional investigation of causation. Also, "correlational" is a very old concept. I went through the papers that you listed here, and you are right about exploratory factor analysis being as good as reading tea leaves. I mean, its as bad as p-values and the confidence intervals. But there is much more modern work. You should check out COSMIN consensus work.

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