The rise of quantitative methods in psychology

Abstract

Quantitative methods have a long history in some scientific fields. Indeed, no one today would consider a qualitative data set in physics or a qualitative theory in chemistry. Quantitative methods are so central in these fields that they are often labelled "hard sciences". Here, we examine the question, whether psychology is ready to enter the "hard science club" lieke biology did in the forties. The facts that a) over half of the statistical techniques used in psychology are less than 40 years old and that b) the number of simulations in empirical papers has followed an exponential growth since the eighties, both suggestst that theanswer is yes. The purpose of "Tutorials ..." is to provide a concise and easy access to the current methods.