Concepts with direct indicator links need no special measurement theory

Evidence

Fifth, Blalock and the psychologists were concerned with abstract concepts and phenomena with no easily measurable manifestation. A measure of “sex” or “gender” was not the kind of concept that the factor analytic school was concerned about. For these concepts the link between measurement and the concept—between measured and unmeasured—was so clear and direct that it was not seen as problematic. The concepts that I shall focus on as core examples are those that are complex and multidimensional, but which often have quite direct links between the secondary-level dimensions and the datalevel indicators. Unlike the huge gap between the concept of intelligence and the response to questions on a test, the difference between a secondary-level concept of democracy such as competitive elections and the actual data level is not large. — Gary Goertz, Social Science Concepts, 136

Categorization

• XREF: Distinguishes measurement models (factor analysis, latent-variable scaling) from concepts whose lower-level dimensions map nearly one-to-one onto observables — useful contrast with earlier chapters on indicator selection.