Meehl, Paul E. (1920–2003)

Paul E. Meehl was an intellect and Renaissance man who made enduring contributions in a diverse array of subject areas in psychology and beyond. In psychology, he was best known for his work in measurement, philosophy of science, biological bases of schizophrenia, statistics, and actuarial approaches to assessment and prediction. He also published in areas as diverse as political science, extrasensory perception, psychology and law, and religion.

Meehl was a relentless analyst, and his formidable critical faculties led him to some radical conclusions. His theory of schizotaxia (an inherited predisposition to schizophrenia-spectrum disorders) and his dislike of statistical significance tests as a basis for theoretical inferences have since gained wide acceptance. Other conclusions, such as his inclination to think that “there is something to telepathy” and his “skepticism about the received doctrine of organic evolution,” place him well outside the scientific mainstream and into the area of the “strictly taboo.” Meehl's open-mindedness and probing intellect led to illuminating commentaries on virtually every subject that captured his interest. As a result, he probably authored or coauthored more “classic” conceptual papers (and certainly in more diverse areas) than anyone in the history of psychology.

Perhaps his most influential contribution was to measurement theory. In a 1955 article coauthored with Lee J. Cronbach, Meehl revolutionized the process by which psychologists provide evidence for validity of measures used in research and practice. A major contribution of this article was the acknowledgment that, for most psychological measures, validity cannot be established by a straightforward comparison with a criterion, because normally no unambiguously valid criterion measure can be found. For example, one would like to validate a pencil-and-paper measure of depressive tendencies by showing that it differentiates depressed from nondepressed individuals—but there is no perfectly accurate method of differentiating these two groups to serve as a criterion measure. Cronbach and Meehl explored the implications of this revelation for measurement theory and laid the groundwork for a new approach to construct validation that is central to the postpositivist philosophy of science.

Meehl was a unique figure in psychology in another way. He was a first-rate philosophical and mathematical thinker who also identified strongly as a clinician. He practiced from a psychoanalytic orientation during his early professional decades, then incorporated perspectives from rational-emotive and brief psychodynamic therapies in his mature years. Psychologists who take the trouble to read his original papers on applied psychology (rather than relying on textbook or reviewer summaries) are likely to be pleasantly surprised by Meehl's astute clinical “ear.” His writings reveal a keen appreciation for the virtues of clinical experience as a basis for theory and practice, and offer wise counsel on applied matters including training and certification, assessment and case conceptualization, and the role of science in informing the practice of psychology.

With a foot in each camp, Meehl was fascinated and sometimes surprised by the tensions between those psychologists who identified primarily as scientists and those who identified primarily as practitioners. Members of each faction were granted exalted social status in their respective domains—practitioners in their clinical settings, and scientists in the halls of academia—and each group could be sharply critical of the other, frequently employing unflattering emotion-driven characterizations. Meehl had little patience with such ad hominem attacks, and worked diligently to impress each camp with its limitations as [Page 685]an exclusive basis for claims about valid theory or optimal practice in psychology.

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