ABSTRACT
Psychology has developed an impressive array of methods over the last 120 years and it is widely maintained that methodology represents our area of greatest accomplishment. In contrast, our failure to develop general and plausible theories is seen as our greatest shortcoming. For example, as Royce (1984) pointed out, “Despite 100 years of data gathering, psychology has not evolved into a mature, scientific discipline.… Psychology’s greatest deficiency … lies in its failure to develop viable theory” (pp. vii–ix).
