Read on Twitter
We read Albright & @ThomasM51526161, 2000, for a lab meeting recently. Highly recommended. Something that particularly struck me was the discussion of why Donald Campbell prioritized internal validity https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1037/1089-2680.4.4.337
Psychologists have been arguing about whether to prioritize internal or external validity for decades. It's certainly been part of the discourse my whole career & the discussion is still quite active today. I really enjoyed this article for putting it into a historical context
The line of pro-internal-validity argumentation I'm more familiar with is usually based on philosophical arguments about valid inferences to and about theory. Mook's (1992) famous argument/rant is an example of that kind of argument https://psycnet.apa.org/record/1992-97624-020
A less sophisticated version of that sentiment which I've encountered over the years (informally, but pretty prominently) is a kind of soft scientism. Experimental control is what Real Scientists do, if we want to be a Real Science we should do highly controlled experiments
What was interesting to me about Campbell was that that wasn't where he was coming from. Neither the sophisticated nor unsophisticated version. He had a very different motivation
Per A&M, Campbell's vision of social science's role in society was about producing social change. He emphasized internal validity because if you're going to tell people "You should spend time and resources doing X, and Y will follow," you better be damn sure that's true
This is also why, for Campbell, prioritizing internal validity did not automatically translate into prioritizing randomized experiments. Yes, you want internal validity - but you are pursuing it in service of addressing important social issues
I will say that I am not persuaded that an emphasis on social change necessarily means prioritizing internal validity. You could also argue that if you're going to tell people what to do based on scientific research, you should be damn sure the research is relevant to their lives
But it is a line of argumentation that I am much more sympathetic to than the other ones, in either their sophisticated or unsophisticated forms. It deepened my appreciation of Campbell. And since I'm not in the mood to argue about Mook today I'll stop there :)
