ABSTRACT
There was a time when most researchers believed that the only phenomena that counted in the social sciences were those that could be measured. To make that perfectly clear, they called any phenomenon they intended to study a ‘variable’, indicating that the phenomenon could vary in size, length, amount, or any other quantity. Unfortunately, not many phenomena in the human world come naturally in quantities. How many people tune in to a certain television show, how long they watch it, and what their average age is, for instance, are variables of interest to a person curious about human affairs, but such observable behaviors and statistics merely scratch the surface.
