University of Delhi 2008 M.B.A Faculty of Management Studies (FMS) - Question Paper

the personological realm in ways that are more theoretically
and clinically fruitful? 1 choice would be to anchor
personological phenomena directly in the empirical world of
observables in a one-to-one fashion, tying every attribute to
only 1 indicator. every attribute would then be its mode of
measurement, possessing no info beyond that
contained in the procedure itself, akin to operational
definitions.
Operational definitions are quite pleasingly precise but
considerably limited in scope. Ultimate empirical precision can
only be achieved if every defining feature that distinguishes a
taxon is anchored to a single observable in the real world; that
is, a various datum for every difference observed ranging from
personality syndromes. This goal is simply not feasible or
desirable: The subject domain of personology is inherently
more weekly organized than that of the so-called hard
sciences. As 1 moves from physics and chemistry into
biological and psychological arenas, unidirectional causal
path-ways provide way to feedback and feedforward processes,
which in turn provide rise to emergent levels of description that
are more inferential than the physical substrates that underlie
them. Intrapsychic formulations, for example, require that the
clinician transcend the level of the merely observable. Owing to
their abstract and hypothetical character, these indeterminate
and intervening concepts are known as open concepts.
The polar distinction ranging from operational definitions (the
paradigm of those who prefer to employ data derived from
empirical-practical contexts) and open concepts (those whose
ideas are derived from a more causal-theoretical stance)
represents in part an epistemological continuum of conceptual
specificity to conceptual openness. every end of this polarity
embraces a compromise ranging from scope and precision. The
virtue of every hides its vices. The advantage of operationism is
obvious: Personality syndromes and the attributes of which
they are composed are rendered unambiguous. Diagnostic
identifications are directly translatable into measurement
procedures, maximizing precision. However, the direct
mapping of attributes to measurement procedures needed
ignores the biases incumbent to any 1 procedure, so that
operationism is fatally deficient in scope.
The “open concept” model, likewise, has its own
advantage : Open concepts acknowledge the desirability of
multiple measurement procedures and encourage their user to

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