Philosophical Preconditions Guide Null Hypothesis Significance Testing in Empirical Psychology

Abstract

To mathematize is closely related to the ideal of scientific objectivity, claiming bias-free results. In this respect, mathematization may substantiate the belief that significance testing could prove or disprove a hypothesis, since it is considered bias-free. However, this belief overlooks the fact that scientific objectivity is an epistemic virtue. Additionally, reducing human activity to numbers inevitably involves simplifying the real world, which includes uncertainty. Although statistics is valuable to psychology and science, it may be vulnerable to ontological reductionism.

Keywords

• empirical psychology
• epistemic virtues
• methodology
• null hypothesis significance testing
• philosophical preconditions
• reductionism
• replication crisis
• scientific objectivity