Ascribing meaning to single, molecular measures: A question of methodological adequacy.

Abstract

The present study examined the validity of the assumption that meaning can be ascribed to behavior based on a single molecular measure of that behavior. The implicit adoption of this assumption in the flexibility-rigidity literature is discussed as a case in point. An impression formation task was completed by 287 students of introductory psychology classes. The results indicated that (a) there were low correlations among measures of individual aspects of flexibility that are conceptually akin to those measures frequently employed in the literature, (b) similar responses on a single dimension of behavior characterized distinct response configurations, and (c) single, elemental responses, which would be subject to conflicting interpretations when considered alone, characterized the same constellation of responses. It was concluded that it is tenuous and potentially obscurant to infer cognitive processing from responses that are examined independently of their structural context.It has been common in psychology to ascribe meaning to behavior based on the measurement of a single dimension of that behavior as though this aspect were so isomorphic with the whole behavior that the meaning of the behavior could be inferred independently of the cognitive mediational context in which that aspect is embedded. However, there is reason to suspect the adequacy of this molecular assumption. Organismic theory and research (Asch, 1946;Goldstein, 1939;Weiss, 1939Weiss, , 1969Werner, 1948), for example, suggest that a single behavior could reflect different cognitive gestalts or structural configurations and thereby carry vastly different meanings. Thus, as Campbell and Fiske (1959) admonished, any single measure is an equivocal representation of a concept and subject to a number of interpretations. Given such contrasting orientations, the present study examines the adequacy of additive assumptions and molecular levels of analysis.Two pieces of evidence address the validity of the assumption that meaning may be ascribed to behavior based on a single, molecular measure of that behavior. If the meaning of a behavior and its underlying Requests for reprints should be sent to