Ivory Tower Archives

Ivory Tower: Risky Opinions

Many of our opinions have a moral component: they depend on what we think is good, right, and fair. Such opinions are often betrayed by…

Denny BorsboomDecember 27, 2024

Ivory Tower Spiegeloog 432: Fragile

Ivory Tower: Fragility

Fragility. Who would expect such an innocent concept to dominate much of 20th century philosophy? Yet that’s what it did. Fragility is a disposition, and…

Denny BorsboomApril 10, 2024

Ivory Tower People Spiegeloog 427: Anomalies

Ivory Tower: Anomalous Experience

In the behavioral sciences, one of the main methodological tensions is between qualitative and quantitative approaches. Traditionally, qualitative approaches focus on understanding human behavior through…

Denny BorsboomSeptember 27, 2023

Ivory Tower People Spiegeloog 421: Reflections

Ivory Tower: Reflective Measurement

When we assess psychological attributes, like depression, intelligence, or attitudes, we commonly use sets of items that “measure” the construct in question. A sizable literature…

Denny BorsboomNovember 3, 2022

Ivory Tower Spiegeloog 419: Harmony

Ivory Tower: Scientific publishing is out of tune

One of the most controversial aspects of the scientific enterprise concerns the way scientific work is published. Basically, this works as follows. Scientists do research,…

Denny BorsboomJune 24, 2022

Ivory Tower People Spiegeloog 416: Language

Ivory Tower: The Mystery of Language

Of all the behaviors that people engage in, speech is the biggest mystery. Even the physical act of speaking is bizarre, if you think about…

Denny BorsboomFebruary 4, 2022

Ivory Tower Society Spiegeloog 414: Rise

Ivory Tower: Rising Raises

This summer, I learned I am getting a 2% raise as a result of the new CAO. The 2% raise holds for everyone – professors…

Denny BorsboomNovember 10, 2021

Ivory Tower People Science Spiegeloog 413: Nature

Ivory Tower: Human Nature From a Methodological Point of View

Humans can’t be trusted with data. Especially when the stakes are high, human beings have difficulty keeping their heads cool and their thinking straight. The…

Denny BorsboomOctober 5, 2021

Ivory Tower Spiegeloog 410: Rainbows

Ivory Tower: Tom Bombadil’s rainbow

My favorite character in The Lord of the Rings is Tom Bombadil, a jolly fellow who lives in the woods. Despite his youthful appearance, Bombadil…

Denny BorsboomMarch 12, 2021

Ivory Tower People Spiegeloog 409: Conflict

Ivory Tower: Covid conflicts

Although humankind has a long history of dealing with epidemics, the Covid-19 pandemic has many novel features. Much of that has to do with the…

Denny BorsboomJanuary 18, 2021

Ivory Tower Society Spiegeloog 408: Consequences

Ivory Tower: Roasted

In the past few months, I have been involved in research programs aimed to measure and promote social distancing. For example, in the Smart Distance…

Denny BorsboomNovember 23, 2020

Ivory Tower Spiegeloog 407: Motivation

Ivory Tower: Fuzzy free will

We, humans, are social animals, and in accordance, our behavior is steered to a large extent by structures in our social environment. You do whatever…

Denny BorsboomOctober 12, 2020

Ivory Tower Spiegeloog 404: Experience

Ivory Tower: Paddle like crazy

There are certain complaints about psychological science that arise with clockwork regularity. Although they are never quite gone, the choirs of critics that lament these…

Denny BorsboomMay 25, 2020

Ivory Tower Science Spiegeloog 403: Global

Ivory Tower: Global science

Some time ago, when I was visiting the University of Oslo, I was introduced to a Norwegian psychometrician whom I will designate as professor X.…

Denny BorsboomApril 6, 2020

Ivory Tower People Science Spiegeloog 402: Appearances

Ivory Tower: Saving the appearances

In his allegory of the cave, the philosopher Plato imagines a group of people seated in a cave, looking at a wall in front of…

Denny BorsboomMarch 23, 2020

Ivory Tower People Science Spiegeloog 401: Dreams

Ivory Tower: Why do we dream?

In the past centuries, science has made amazing progress. The quintessential philosophical questions ‘What is stuff made of?’, ‘How did the universe come into being?’…

Denny BorsboomFebruary 13, 2020

Ivory Tower People Science Spiegeloog 400: Psychology & Writing

Ivory Tower: The psychologist’s critical eye

I often hang out with scientists from different disciplines. Over the years, I have found that there exist profound differences in how people evaluate their…

Denny BorsboomJanuary 22, 2020

Ivory Tower Science Spiegeloog 399: Attention

Ivory Tower: Neural networks

After the introduction of computers into scientific research in the late 1960s, a sizeable group of researchers thought intelligent robots were just around the corner.…

Denny BorsboomDecember 18, 2019

Ivory Tower Science

Ivory Tower: The subjective basis of money

While the study of money is typically left to economists, it is actually a quintessential psychological phenomenon. If anyone should be able to explain how…

Denny BorsboomSeptember 11, 2019

Ivory Tower People Science

Ivory Tower: Mental telescopes

One of the most amazing things that living creatures can do is find their way. If you think about it, this is far from trivial.…

Denny BorsboomJune 19, 2019

Ivory Tower People Science

Ivory Tower: The Hard Puzzle

There are two types of questions: Easy Questions and Hard Questions. Easy Questions arise when you encounter a problem that you don’t know how to…

Denny BorsboomMay 14, 2019

Ivory Tower People Science

Ivory Tower: Psychiatric relativity

Recently, the head of the Palistinian health services claimed that the high prevalence rates of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) that have been reported in Palestine…

Denny BorsboomApril 8, 2019

Ivory Tower People Science

Ivory Tower: Psychological velocity

In his book The Essential Tension, historian of science Thomas Kuhn recalls how he arrived at his famous idea that science progresses by abrupt revolutions…

Denny BorsboomJanuary 18, 2019