title: Inductive inference or inductive behavior: Fisher and Neyman-Pearson approaches to statistical testing in psychological research (1940-1960).
abstract: The application of statistical testing in psychological research over the period of 1940-1960 is examined in order to address psychologists' reconciliation of the extant controversy between the Fisher and Neyman-Pearson approaches. Textbooks of psychological statistics and the psychological journal literature are reviewed to examine the presence of what Gigerenzer (1993) called a hybrid model of statistical testing. Such a model is present in the textbooks, although the mathematically incomplete character of this model precludes the appearance of a similarly hybridized approach to statistical testing in the research literature. The implications of this hybrid model for psychological research and the statistical testing controversy are discussed.
authors.affiliation: University of Calgary, Alberta, Canada.
authors.forename: Peter F
authors.initials: PF
authors.lastname: Halpin
authors.forename: Henderikus J
authors.initials: HJ
authors.lastname: Stam
mesh_terms: D049673:History, 20th Century; D006801:Humans; D011581:Psychological Tests; D011584:Psychology / Q000266:history*; D013223:Statistics as Topic / Q000266:history*