Psychometric Observability: A Measurement-Theoretic Framework for Latent Personality Dynamics

Dieses Preprint entwickelt „Psychometric Observability“ als messungstheoretischen Rahmen zur Analyse latenter Persönlichkeitsdynamiken. Ausgangspunkt ist die Frage, ob scheinbar typologische oder dimensionale Persönlichkeitsstrukturen tatsächlich Eigenschaften der zugrunde liegenden psychologischen Dynamik sind – oder teilweise durch die Geometrie des Beobachtungsoperators selbst entstehen.   Das Manuskript formalisiert Persönlichkeit als zeitabhängigen latenten Zustandsraum z(t), der über unterschiedliche Beobachtungsoperatoren auf manifeste Messwerte projiziert wird. Aufbauend auf Konzepten aus Dynamischen Systemen, Psychometrie, Fisher-Information und Kontrolltheorie zeigt das Paper, wie identische latente Dynamiken durch kontinuierliche versus threshold-basierte Messinstrumente unterschiedliche manifeste Strukturen erzeugen können.   Zur Veranschaulichung wird ein minimales formales Scaffold eingeführt: ein zweidimensionales Double-Well-System mit metastabilen Zuständen, kombiniert mit zwei kontrastierenden Beobachtungsoperatoren. Zusätzlich wird ein Simulationsprogramm vorgeschlagen, um beobachtungsoperator-induzierte Unterschiede zwischen trait-artigen und typologischen Beschreibungen systematisch zu untersuchen.   Die Arbeit versteht sich ausdrücklich als konzeptueller und methodologischer Beitrag, nicht als empirisch validierte Persönlichkeitstheorie oder klinisches Instrument.   Keywords (DE):Psychometric Observability, Beobachtungsoperator, latente Dynamik, Persönlichkeit, Messungstheorie, Dynamische Systeme, Fisher-Information, metastabile Systeme, Typen versus Dimensionen, Double-Well-Potential, Kontrolltheorie, psychometrische Modellierung, Zustandsraumdynamik, Beobachtungsgeometrie ENGLISH This preprint develops “Psychometric Observability” as a measurement-theoretic framework for analysing latent personality dynamics. The central question is whether apparently typological or dimensional personality structures truly reflect the underlying psychological dynamics, or whether they partly emerge from the geometry of the observation operator itself. The manuscript formalizes personality as a time-dependent latent state space z(t) projected onto manifest measurements through different observation operators. Building on concepts from dynamical systems theory, psychometrics, Fisher information, and control theory, the paper demonstrates how identical latent dynamics can generate qualitatively different manifest structures under continuous versus thresholded measurement operators. To illustrate the framework, the paper introduces a minimal formal scaffold consisting of a two-dimensional double-well latent system with metastable states and two contrasting observation operators. A simulation programme is further proposed to investigate how observation geometry shapes trait-like versus type-like manifest descriptions. The contribution is explicitly conceptual and methodological rather than an empirically validated theory of personality or a clinical instrument. Keywords (EN):Psychometric Observability, observation operator, latent dynamics, personality dynamics, measurement theory, dynamical systems, Fisher information, metastability, dimensions versus types, double-well potential, control theory, psychometric modelling, state-space dynamics, observation geometry

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