The Fallacy of the Average Person,

Abstract

An analysis is made of the origins and transmission of so-called scientific 'truth', and of the influence of 'sets', or predispositions for certain ways of thinking, upon current concepts of behavior. One of the principal prevailing sets is the tendency to interpret behavioral research results in terms of group rather than individual performance, in which use of the concept of 'average' is transformed from an index of group performance to one which represents the individual performances of each member of the group. Examples taken from research data are presented to illustrate the dangerously misleading conclusions which can be drawn by such procedures, and their potentially dangerous consequences for public believes about human behavior. (Author)

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
May 21, 1979
Accession Number
ADA069850

Entities

People

  • Bernard J. Fine
  • John L. Kobrick

Organizations

  • United States Army Research Institute of Environmental Medicine

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Biomedical

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Behavioral Research
  • Behavioral Sciences
  • Bodies
  • Books
  • Data Analysis
  • Engineering
  • Engineers
  • Human Behavior
  • Medical Personnel
  • Musculoskeletal Physiology
  • Newspapers
  • Periodicals
  • Personality
  • Psychological Tests
  • Scientists
  • Textbooks
  • Translations

Fields of Study

  • Psychology

Readers

  • Educational Psychology
  • Instructional Design and Training Evaluation.
  • Theoretical Analysis.