In Social Sciences (in General), Psychology and Psychiatry
In social sciences in general, psychology and psychiatry included, data about differences between individuals, like any data, can be collected and measured using different levels of measurement. Those levels include dichotomous (a person either has a personality trait or not) and non-dichotomous approaches. While the non-dichotomous approach allows for understanding that everyone lies somewhere on a particular personality dimension, the dichotomous (nominal categorical and ordinal) approaches only seek to confirm that a particular person either has or does not have a particular mental disorder.
Expert witnesses particularly are trained to help courts in translating the data into the legal (e.g. 'guilty' vs. 'innocent') dichotomy, which apply to law, sociology and ethics.
Read more about this topic: Continuum (theory)
Famous quotes containing the words social, sciences and/or psychology:
“If the Russians have gone too far in subjecting the child and his peer group to conformity to a single set of values imposed by the adult society, perhaps we have reached the point of diminishing returns in allowing excessive autonomy and in failing to utilize the constructive potential of the peer group in developing social responsibility and consideration for others.”
—Urie Bronfenbrenner (b. 1917)
“Letting a hundred flowers blossom and a hundred schools of thought contend is the policy for promoting the progress of the arts and the sciences and a flourishing culture in our land.”
—Mao Zedong (1893–1976)
“Whatever else American thinkers do, they psychologize, often brilliantly. The trouble is that psychology only takes us so far. The new interest in families has its merits, but it will have done us all a disservice if it turns us away from public issues to private matters. A vision of things that has no room for the inner life is bankrupt, but a psychology without social analysis or politics is both powerless and very lonely.”
—Joseph Featherstone (20th century)