| | Classics in the History of Psychology -- MacCorquodale & Meehl (1948) |
 | | This equation asserts that habit strength is a certain joint function of four variables which refer to direct empirical quantities-number of reinforcements, delay in reinforcement, amount of reinforcement, and asynchronism between the discriminative stimuli and the response. |
 | | We propose a linguistic convention in the interest of clarity: that the phrase intervening variable be restricted to concepts of the first kind, in harmony with Tolman's original definition; and that the phrase hypothetical construct be used for those of the second kind. |
 | | These hypothetical constructs, unlike intervening variables, are inadmissible because they require the existence of entities and the occurrence of processes which cannot be seriously believed because of other knowledge. |
| psychclassics.yorku.ca /MacMeehl/hypcon-intvar.htm (375 words) |