Farewell to Variables

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 CONTENTS

Series Editor’s Preface: About Regression and Progress—Or

the Problem With Pars Pro Toto.............................................................vii
Dominik Stefan Mihalits

Introduction: The Mentality of a Controllable World:

Why Variables Were Needed...................................................................ix
Jaan Valsiner

P A R T I
ORGANIZATIONAL FICTIONS:
VARIABLES THAT WE CONTROL

1. Variables as Obstacles to Psychological Science: Finding

Humanness Beneath, Between and Beyond
Conventional Categories............................................................................ 3
Nandita Chaudhary, Mila Tuli, and Punya Pillai

2. A Psychology of the Ordinary: A First Theoretical Sketch................. 21

Bo Allesøe Christensen

3. Don’t Mind the Variables........................................................................ 45

Svend Brinkmann

4. The Hidden Assumptions of Variable-based Social Science................ 59

Henrik Skaug Sætra

v
vi • CONTENTS

P A R T I I
WAYS OF USES OF THE NOTION OF VARIABLES

5. Farewell to Variables in Studies of Developmental Psychology:

Notes on a Critical and Conceptual Debate........................................... 75
Julio César Ossa and Jean Nikola Cudina

6. No Variables in Classroom: Understanding Learning by a

Qualitative Analytical Tool................................................................... 111
João Roberto Ratis Tenório da Silva

P A R T I I I
GOING BEYOND THE VARIABLES: NEW PERSPECTIVES

7. Mind Is Movement: We Need More Than Static

Representations to Understand It......................................................... 137
Raffaele De Luca Picione and Sergio Salvatore

8. Psychology Between Qualitative and Quantitative Phenomena:

On the Different Strati of Introspection............................................... 159
Natalie Rodax

9. New Perspectives in Ecosystemic Psychology:

Developmental Mereotopology............................................................. 183
Luca Tateo and Giuseppina Marsico

10. Sayonara Variable, Konnichiwa Equifinality Point: Semiotic

Cultural Psychology Teaches Us What Colorful Really Means.........201
Tatsuya Sato, Yuko Yasuda, Misato Fukuyama, Daina Ishii,
Ayae Kido, Yasuhiro Omi, and Yoshiyuki Watanabe

11. General Conclusion: A Respectful Farewell to the Illusion of

Quantified Objectivity........................................................................... 215
Jaan Valsiner
 SERIES EDITOR’S PREFACE

ABOUT REGRESSION AND

PROGRESS—OR THE PROBLEM
WITH PARS PRO TOTO
Dominik Stefan Mihalits
Sigmund Freud PrivatUniversität

Farewell to Variables is a non-complex book about dealing with complexity. This

statement, at first sight possibly an oxymoron or at least “close to” it. I imme-
diately had the impulse of deleting it from here, did so, as it seemed catchy but
incorrect at same time, and finally after revising it all, I typed it again. It might
better describe the intention and contents of this book, as any other formulation
I came across during the process of writing. But why might it be like that? To be
able in making my point clear, I kindly ask for some patience and would like to
move to the point, where I was able to locate the initial problem: University as
an institution itself. Having the opportunity in teaching students in psychology at
diverse levels (undergraduate, graduate, etc. …) and being faculty staff and part
of administration at the same time, I tend to see some parallels in structures of
non-complex environments. Everybody, students as well as teachers (and I do not
exclude myself at this point, still guilty!), seem to have some tendency towards
happiness as long as questions are being asked and corresponding answers might
be found and given. Nevertheless, in my own observations while teaching, I need

Farewell to Variables, pages vii–viii.

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viii • DOMINIK STEFAN MIHALITS

to state clearly that the most provoking questions allowing mental progress in
thinking seem to be those to which nobody is able to give clear answers.
Allowing to start such demanding processes in thinking needs time, something
nobody seems to have left anymore nowadays. It seems as there is no interest in
complexity left, which is in some way understandable, as manyfold information
can be easily found online, only seconds away of accessing it via the last genera-
tion of smart devices. Reducing complexity seems to bring comfort. But there also
seems to be a misunderstanding happening at this point, too. Most information
provided gets shown totally (over-)simplified: Exemplarily, nowadays you find
service providers that advertise to make complex scientific books understandable
as audio books, grasping the core content within a few minutes. As well as people
do not any longer read newspapers, but stick to short headlines to get informed
about what is happening in the world and at same time everybody reduces the
communication of their emotional excitations by using a core bundle of picto-
grams, so-called smileys, a basic function within all kind of messenger services.
There are many more examples to state, but I think it is already clear that one
should think that due to all this services, human beings need to have saved so
much time in life. But where is it? Well, I doubt it is like that and state critically:
I wish back complexity.
In other words, university should be about problems solving strategies. A goal
that this book aims to have, too: More precisely, authors question the usefulness
of variables in research fields, such as those in our example of psychology, deal-
ing with issues within “hypercomplex” subject areas from the ground up, and
consequently clearly points out their recognized limitations.
The authors of this book, coming from diverse traditions, research fields and
interests, exemplify how today’s tendency towards lived pragmatism for the sake
of fulfilling funding based research projects do not necessarily lead to innovation.
“Answering the answerable” seems to be the credo of psychology’s research in
the 21st century within an ongoing circulus vitiosus. The easy seems to seek for the
even easier. Therefore, it will be shown that decreasing complexity is always in
trade with phenomenal loss in translation. In addition, authors detect that it’s time
to actively engage with complexity to serve the need in better understanding of
human needs. This has followed in an ever increasing fragmentation of the subject
of psychology and its methods, which one would like to counter by writing this
book and raising voices for the need in searching for alternatives. It seems it is the
“regression” that makes true “progress” only possible. A step backwards means
here, the attempt to transfer the artificial, representative constructs again purpose-
fully into the complexity of the everyday life. Thus, a corresponding continuation
is needed, since this new attempt at knowledge must leave pure research practice
and also find far-reaching anchorage in teaching. In short: The regression in class-
rooms and teaching seems to be unavoidable, since it is there that these people
have to be trained, who are to put what has been discussed here into practice in the
future—if there is to be progress in psychology again in the future.
 INTRODUCTION

THE MENTALITY OF A
CONTROLLABLE WORLD
Why Variables Were Needed
Jaan Valsiner
Aalborg University

We try to control our worlds. And we depend on the worlds to give us constant
surprises in these efforts. Our success means our failure—the effort to control the
uncontrollable leads to the need to conceptualize these failures as if these are suc-
cesses. This presentational need leads us to formulation of the notion of variables.
The issue of presenting the known and possible elements in a field became
evident in late 16th century when the French mathematician Francois Viete started
to represent known and unknown numbers by letters. Viète’s convention was to
use consonants for known values, and vowels for unknowns—very much in paral-
lel with language utterances. Following him, Rene Descartes invented the rule of
presenting unknowns in mathematical equations by x, y, z and the knowns by a, b,
c. Thus equations like x= a + b provides the mathematicians with the making of an
unknown known via a simple calculation. It was in the 18th century that Leonhard
Euler introduced the abstract notion of function—y = f(x)—which has become
used in psychology in the form of Kurt Lewin’s general idea of B(ehavior)= f
(Person, Environment). This general formulation has been widespread in psychol-
ogy over the 20th century—yet without further elaboration what the notion “func-

Farewell to Variables, pages ix–xv.

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x • JAAN VALSINER

tion of” means in abstract terms in psychology. What has happened is exclusive
separation of the person from environment in the thinking of psychologists while
focusing on the unifying miraculous term “function”:

The division of the actions of socially situated persons into separate individual and
external components provided the framework for a general atomization of the fea-
tures of both the individual and the situation. The latter had become an “environ-
ment” for the independent individual. A pursuit of universally valid natural scientific
laws most often took the form of establishing empirical associations between sepa-
rate individual and environmental “variables” or “factors.” (Danziger, 1990, p. 187)

So—psychologists divide the whole (person-in-environment) into the exclusively

separated units (person and environment). Then they treat the “and” as a function,
and assume that—like in mathematics—that word change gives us new understand-
ing. For mathematics leaving the “function of” unelaborated is sufficient for its fur-
ther argumentation. Mathematics strives towards abstraction while psychology as
science is constantly lost between the need to abstract and provide concrete solutions.

FILLING IN THE “FUNCTION OF”:

RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN VARIABLES
How can we make sense of the generic notion Y=f(x)? If Y and x are considered
as conditions operating in a system the answer is trivial—“The roof is the function
of the house” is merely a re-statement that the roof is part of the house that stands
in its static condition and fulfills important functions. The roof and the house are
constant parts of the architectural whole. They are not variables. A roof that varies
its form under the influence of external stimulation (rain, snow) is not productive
for the functions of the house—even if it proves the causal link of rain pressure
on the particular rain-protecting structure.
If the mathematical notion of variable is strictly defined, then psychologists
use of the term— or “variables discourse”—is devoid of such rigor. The entrance
into psychology of the term came slowly in the beginning of the 20th century,
together with the proliferation of the statistical thinking. It got a strong impe-
tus in the 1920s and was especially rapid in its taking over psychology in the
1930s (Danziger, 1997, pp. 163–176). Interestingly its major social carrier was
not experimental psychology (where the manipulation of the independent variable
would be a practical step, and its concomitant impact on the dependent variable a
reasonable empirical question), but from the rapidly advancing personality study
perspectives in American psychology. There is no possibility to manipulate “per-
sonality variables” which by their nature should be viewed as constants. Neither
are such variables assumed to change under changes in the context—my intro-
version as my core personality feature is not supposed to turn into extraversion
under constant participation in jovial drinking and chatting rituals with my fellow
persons. Yet by the 1950s psychologists in North America were busy interacting
with one another using the “variables discourse” labelling any possible detectable
element taken out from the whole as a “variable.”
 The Mentality of a Controllable World • xi

CONTRASTING THREE TERMS:

INDETERMINATE, VARIABLE, AND CONSTANT
In mathematical terms the distinction is clear:

If x may have any one of a specific set of values it is called an indeterminate. If, on
the other hand, it is supposed to take these values successively in any specific order,
it is called a variable. (Fine, 1911, p. 750)

Here the values are not static givens (such as fixed parts of a whole) but conditions
which possibly can be different at times—changing themselves or be changed.
This possibility is the starting point for talking about variables. Yet the possibility
needs not be actualized and a given value in a domain may remain in its present
state (e.g. “2” in the domain 1, 2, 3).The fixed variable “2” is constant. Constant
is thus an arrested variable in a domain 1, 2, 3 that is indeterminate. It becomes
variable if we add direction to the possible change within the domain (1→2→3):

We are free at any time to assign to an indeterminate or variable any particular value
which belongs to its domain; but it then ceases to be an indeterminate or a variable
and becomes a constant (Fine, 1911, p. 750)

This is strict view that starts from the setting up of the domain of possibilities
within which the determinate set of constants can be posited. Thus, in a domain
of 1…3 (which is limited by 1 and 3) any assignment of a real number (e.g. 2 or
2.73) fixes a constant within the domain.

Thus if x is free to take any of the values 1, 2, 3, and these only, it is an indeterminate
and the assemblage 1, 2, 3 is its domain: it becomes a variable if we think of it as
taking successively the value 1, the value 2, the value 3, the value 1 &c. (Fine, 1911,
p. 750 added emphasis)

Thus—thinking in variables involves superimposing upon static possibilities the

temporal movement between constants within the domain of the indeterminate.
The indeterminate is the field within which both constants can be posited (e.g.,
“let x be 2 in the domain 1,2,3) and variables presupposed (e.g. “let x be first 2
and then 3 in the domain 1,2,3)

VARIETIES OF VARIABLES1
Variable whose possible values depend on some other variable lead us to the dis-
tinction made between “dependent” and “independent” variables—widely used
in experimental psychology where some conditions of the experiment can be pur-
posefully changed by the researcher (independent variable) so as to study the
impact of this change on the other (dependent) variable. The property of a vari-
1
I will not discuss the issue of the random variable in psychological research. Its functions remain
in the scope of statistical theories and their abstract constructions and bear no relationships to the
practices of variables attribution in psychological research practices.
xii • JAAN VALSINER

able to be dependent or independent depends often on the point of view and is not
intrinsic to the phenomena that are being investigated. In fact, any experiment
requires that the factors (“variables”) involved in them are inherently interdepen-
dent (see Brinkmann, in this volume)—the domain within which causal impacts
are to be studied needs their connection—beyond which the experimental change
of one of the variables (designated as independent) could be reasonably studied as
bringing about some change in the “dependent” variable. No matter how much I
might try to use my capacity to meditate to keep the climate on Earth to become
warmer I fail—my mind is not systemically linked with the ozone layer above the
South Pole. Yet my systematic meditation may lead to my feeling that my feet—
systemic parts of my body—are becoming warmer.
Thus, in an abstract summary— a dependent variable is a variable that is im-
plicitly a function of another (or several other) variables. An independent vari-
able is a variable that is not dependent—by which our vernacular means that
it can be modulated independently of the system to which it belongs so as to
see how the system—as defined by the selected parameters (dependent variables)
change. This leads to the inevitable paradox—in order for a factor of interest to
researcher it needs to be part of the system that is being studied (that is—depen-
dent on the systemic relations) but for the purposes of experimental manipulation
it should not be that. So the researcher pretends that by selecting factor X as an in-
dependent variable (system-free) she (or he) is actually introducing manipulations
in X (freely) which then—by some miracle—become reflective of the systemic
dependency of the effects of such manipulation. We select X out of the systemic
structure, assume that it is independent (since we can change it for research pur-
poses) and that its “effects” are going to tell us something about two dependencies
of the experiment—upon the experimental manipulation, and upon the role of the
changed factor in its systemic organization.
The reality of psychological systems sets constraints upon the freedom to se-
lect the independent and dependent variables. Some features of the systems stud-
ied do not allow for manipulation. In psychology researchers often operate with
factors that in fact cannot be changed in practice, even if in abstract terms one
can contemplate such transformation. A psychologist who uses gender as “inde-
pendent variable” in one’s studies is obviously not performing sex change surger-
ies in their research participants, but would look at obtained differences between
genders (dependent variable change) as if this resulted from the change from male
to female or vice versa, in all of the research participants. Gender is de facto an
“index variable” (constant) that becomes in abstraction treated as if it is an inde-
pendent variable. A similar status of transfer of an index into an “independent”
variable can be observed in the case of using Socio-Economic Status as a factor
in psychological studies. It could become a true independent variable (if the re-
searcher introduces programs to make poor people rich, or millionaires to become
paupers), but in all practices it remains an index of the economic status of the
 The Mentality of a Controllable World • xiii

person at the given time. Differently rich and poor persons are then viewed as if
cases of one turning into the other in a generalized abstract person.
So we see a game of “hide-and-seek” played by the researchers—the assump-
tion of change for the individual is embedded in the contrast between individ-
uals—only to be interpreted again in generic models pertaining to individuals
(Valsiner, 1986). The mental game of treating constants as if these could be vari-
ables in a particular domain creates an epistemological act of violence towards
the phenomena that are of systemic kind. It also leads to the overlooking of the
non-ergodic nature of the psychological systems that renders the interpretation
of inter-individual variability (inj samples) as if it were isomorphic with intra-
individual variability (within individuals over time—Molenaar et al., 2002). The
demonstration of non-ergodicity of psychological systems has major implications
for the use of existing empirical evidence—no sample-based claim of relation-
ships (correlational or causal) is transferrable to the application contexts involv-
ing individual cases. The whole machinery of studying psychological issues using
samples to populations generalization tactics are thus proven to produce data of
limited or no applied value2.
Two other types of variables are important to note in our entrance into the
variables discourse—these of intervening variable and moderating variable3. The
former of these illustrates the futility of the Stimulus à Response model, intro-
ducing in between the two some intervening counterparts. Where would these
intervening factors come from? Two sources are obvious—from the systemic re-
lationships of both the independent and dependent variables. The pretense of their
standing out independently is thus lost, and the systemic conditions intervene in
the S à R relation, as a surprise for the researcher.
The second source of intervening conditions is more profound—the active resis-
tance by the human beings to modifications of their life worlds—which the varia-
tion of the independent variable is from the receiver’s viewpoint. All biological
systems resist to incoming pressures—a realization from the vend of 18th century
Naturphilosophie. So the realistic scheme of any study makes the intervention by
resistance central to our research efforts (Chaudhary & Valsiner, 2017). Human be-
ings create their personal counter-interpretations to any manipulation of the inde-
pendent variable which guide the various resistance tactics. So, the usual scheme
accepting intervening or moderator variables—S→O→R needs to be re-written as
Sà→O→R where O represents the organism’s resistance to the stimulation.
2
Kurt Danziger provided a direct comparison of the epistemologies of the social sciences and physics:
“
In the social sciences the command to look for variables was taken to mean that phenomena ought to
be investigated in terms of their variation—in Psychology, typically, inter-individual variation. Had
physicists proceeded like this they would have attempted to study the differences between a variety
of falling bodies , or the differences among a variety of warm bodies. Fortunately this was not their
approach , for had it been, it is highly improbable that they would ever have arrived at the law of
gravity or the principles of thermodynamics” (Danziger, 1997, p. 178).
3
The moderating variable entails decisions about variables assumed to be in the middle of regression
solutions between independent and dependent variables.
xiv • JAAN VALSINER

WHY FAREWELL TO VARIABLES?

The goal of our efforts in this book is to demonstrate how the variables discourse
that has dominated psychology in the past century is better left behind and re-
placed by some alternative. Why has it been harmful for psychology’s develop-
ment to use variables discourse? And what are the alternatives?
My answer to the first question is simple—the assumption of the independence
of the independent and dependent variables as that fits the Stimulus à Response
model that prevails in research overlooks the most central issue of psychologi-
cal phenomena—their systemic organization (Sato, et al., 2007). Psychology
has since its beginnings struggled with the ways to conceptualize parts<> whole
relationships in systems under study. This has led to prioritizing the separability
of such parts as elements, relieving them from their systemic interdependencies,
means eliminating the central focus of the study by replacing it with peripheral
manipulations. The crucial nature of the whole is thus eliminated from the first
step the researcher takes. The road to making sense of the systemic generality of
psychological systems becomes substituted by the myriad of SR relations, or
of vast correlational relations that become interpreted in ways that go beyond the
data (Valsiner, 1986). Furthermore—all psychological functions operate at the
border of what is possible in contrast to the non-possible (Glaveanu, 2021) which
indicates a second order systemic relation: the system can be studied in contrast
to its possible (but non-existing) counterpart. My happiness with X in my life
space is not merely the systemic nature of that feeling as it is, but also its contrast
with what it could be (but, fortunately, is not—non-X). This focus on the reality
of the currently non-real is completely absent in the current research discourses
in psychology.
Of course this substation of the central issues by peripheric manipulations has
been the hostage for social organization of psychological science over the 20th
century. Starting from the “behaviorist revolt” of 1913 and continued into the fo-
cus on “evidence based” psychological science by the end of the century (Lamiell,
2019, pp. 125–131), supported by the making of tools into theories (Gigerenzer,
1991). The advantages of the Gestalt- and Genzheit-perspective in psychology
that were developed in the beginning of the 20th century (Diriwächter & Valsiner,
2008) were lost in the transition of the discipline from German to English lan-
guage base, and its corresponding disinterest in the systemic organization of psy-
chological processes.
What are the alternatives? This is the question we try to collectively explore
in this book, and it is up to the readers to decide if our inventions here lead us all
out of the stalemate psychology has moved itself via the “variables discourse.”
One aspect for finding alternatives is clear—the focus on parts <> whole rela-
tionships in systemic organization of the human psyche needs to be preserved
in the research process. But how? There are various existing possibilities—Dy-
namic Systems Theory (van Geert, 1998) as well as the Trajectory Equifinality
Approach (Sato et al., 2016). They differ in both theoretical assumptions and em-
 The Mentality of a Controllable World • xv

pirical method construction strategies. Innovation in all of these is needed—and

this volume should give us some leads.

REFERENCES
Chaudhary, N., & Valsiner, J. (2017). Rhythms of resistance: A way forward. In N. Chaud-
hary, P. Hviid, G. Marsico, & J. W. Villadsen (Eds.), Resistance in everyday life:
Constructing cultural experiences (pp. 319–328). Springer Nature.
Danziger, K. (1990). Constructing the subject. Cambridge University Press.
Danziger, K. (1997). Naming the mind: How psychology found its language. Sage.
Diriwächter, R., & Valsiner, J. (Eds.). (2008). Striving for the whole: Creating theoretical
syntheses. Transaction Publishers.
Fine, H. B. (1911). Variables, In J. M. Baldwin (Ed.), Dictionary of philosophy and psy-
chology (2nd ed.). Macmillan.
Gigerenzer, G. (1991). From tools to theories: A heuristic of discovery in cognitive psy-
chology. Psychological Review, 98, 2, 254–267.
Glaveanu, V. P. (2021). The possible: A sociocultural theory. Oxford University Press.
Lamiell, J. T. (2019). Psychology’s misuse of statistics and persistent dismissal of its crit-
ics. Palgrave Macmillan.
Molenaar, P. C. M., Huizinga, H. M., & Nesselroade, J. (2002). The relationship between
the structure of inter-individual and intra-individual variability. In U. Staudinger &
U. Lindenberger (Eds.), Understanding human development (pp. 339–360). Klüwer.
Sato, T., Mori, N., & Valsiner, J. (Eds.). (2016). Making of the future: The trajectory equi-
finality approach in cultural psychology. Information Age Publishers.
Sato, T., Yasuda, Y., Kido, A., Arakawa, A., Mizoguchi, H., & Valsiner, J. (2007). Sampling
reconsidered: Idiographic science and the analyses of personal life trajectories. In J.
Valsiner, J., & A. Rosa, A. (Eds.), Cambridge handbook of socio-cultural psychol-
ogy (pp. 82–106). Cambridge University Press.
Toomela, A., & Valsiner, J. (Eds.). (2010). Methodological thinking in psychology: 60
years gone astray? Information Age Publishers.
Valsiner, J. (1986). Between groups and individuals: Psychologists’ and laypersons’ inter-
pretations of correlational findings. In J. Valsiner (Ed.), The individual subject and
scientific psychology (pp. 113–152). Plenum.
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dynamics to developmental-science-in the making. Developmental Science, 1(1),
143–159.
 PART I
ORGANIZATIONAL FICTIONS:
VARIABLES THAT WE CONTROL
 CHAPTER 1

VARIABLES AS OBSTACLES TO
PSYCHOLOGICAL SCIENCE
Finding Humanness Beneath, Between and
Beyond Conventional Categories
Nandita Chaudhary, Mila Tuli, and Punya Pillai
University of Delhi

PSYCHOLOGY: THE SEARCH FOR COHERENCE

Mainstream psychology has been dominated by data-driven attempts at establish-
ing the field of variables and constructs and relationships between them. Howev-
er, equally forcefully, scholars have attempted to bring coherence and integration
into the discipline with matched enthusiasm. In the words of Hampden-Turner
(1982):

[T]he contents (of this volume) are limited by my own strained comprehension and
the gaps in my knowledge and also by my search for an overall coherence which has
deterred me from making a mere collection of separate pieces. I confess to finding
academic arbiters of who is “in” and “out” repellent, and, in a field as embryonic as
psychology, both pretentious and blinkered. I have no such ambitions. I have made

Farewell to Variables, pages 3–20.

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4 • NANDITA CHAUDHARY, MILA TULI, & PUNYA PILLAI

a start in the process of putting bits and pieces of Humpty-Dumpty together again
because it needs to be done and too few are even trying. (p. 11, Emphasis ours).

To study something in detail, science has taught us to reduce its size and scope to
smaller bits of manageable information. This exercise has worked well in sepa-
rating stars and substances in the physical world, and there was really no reason
to doubt that it would also do the same for the social sciences. We now live in a
world of science where increased specialization is the mantra for progress in all
fields from medicine to astronomy.

FROM VARIATION TO VARIABLES:

HOW THE DISCIPLINE WAS HIJACKED BY STATISTICS
Variation is a natural expression of living things for which visible evidence is
abundantly available. Unlike machine products that work on the principle of iden-
tical output, natural processes ensure that no two members of the same species
are exactly alike. Among human beings, even identical twins have minute differ-
ences by which they can be told apart. Variables were identified in experimentally
oriented psychological research to refer to human traits that could be identified,
separated, and arranged on the assumption of influence in an experimental setting.
To take an example, the impact of ambient noise on test performance among stu-
dents guides research to set-up experimental conditions to verify the assumption.
The larger model within which such separation and causation is possible can be
noted as the General Liner Model of Psychology and despite the same original
meaning, variables deal with only one specific type of variation where difference
is evaluated by measurement.
The onset of interest in variables and theory construction have advanced some-
what separately. However, as the term became popular around the 1920s, statisti-
cal procedures like correlational studies gained prominence (Walker, 1929). It
was decades later that the statistical definition of variables started to appear in the
form of psychological constructs, and there was no turning back.
Another outcome of the statistical separation of variables was the designation
of independent, dependent, and intervening variables. Around the 1940s, a few
decades after the introduction of variables, the term intervening variable entered
the discourse and “a new language of psychological experimentation was intro-
duced” (Danziger & Dzinas, 1997, p. 2). It was not long before these terms be-
came fashionable in journal articles and academic discourse, an attempt to make
the shallowness of the experimental tradition sound more profound than it was
and position the social sciences as being more in control of the discipline (Bur-
gess, 1929). The largely descriptive terms began to gather a more fundamental
place in the discourse, as constructs that referred to existing psychological phe-
nomena, making these terms unquestionable, immutable, and universal, endow-
ing them with causal efficacy and overdetermined meanings.