Ross Gayler

I recently read @djnavarro 's 2021 paper "If Mathematical Psychology Did Not Exist We Might Need to Invent It: A Comment on Theory Building in Psychology" (https://doi.org/10.1177/1745691620974769).

It's a gem on the role and use of theory in cognitive psychology (and related fields, by extension) and the relation of theory to statistics. As expected, the footnotes are a joy. For my extra reading pleasure, I imagined the paper written in Danielle's sweary-blog style.

#theory #CognitivePsychology #CogPsych #MathematicalPsychology #MathPsych #MetaScience #paper #paper

If Mathematical Psychology Did Not Exist We Might Need to Invent It: A Comment on Theory Building in Psychology - Danielle J. Navarro, 2021

It is commonplace, when discussing the subject of psychological theory, to write articles from the assumption that psychology differs from the physical sciences...

Sage Journals
Oct 16, 2025 at 12:06amWeb
Show threadDanielle NavarroOct 16, 2025
@RossGayler that one was fun to write. it's one of my personal favourites!
Show threadShaunaGM 💚🪦Hampshire CollegeOct 16, 2025

@RossGayler @djnavarro

This post made me check out the article but especially the footnotes, and to my delight the very first one was from a post I edited! This may mean nothing to most people in academia, but I am not in academia, I left 15 years ago, so seeing a tiny impact echoing in the world is just lovely.

Show threadRoss GaylerOct 16, 2025
@shauna @djnavarro
It is indeed gratifying to know that *somebody* was paying attention. Given that somebody in this case is Danielle I would feel extra gratified because she has very good taste for finding interesting material (IMO).