Paul Meehl’s famous critique detailed many of the problematic practices and conceptual confusions that stand in the way of meaningful theoretical progress in psychological science. By integrating many of Meehl’s points, we argue that one of the reasons for the slow progress in psychology is the failure to acknowledge the problem of coordination. This problem arises whenever we attempt to measure quantities that are not directly observable but can be inferred from observable variables. The solution to this problem is far from trivial, as demonstrated by a historical analysis of thermometry. The key challenge is the specification of a functional relationship between theoretical concepts and observations. As we demonstrate, empirical means alone cannot determine this relationship. In the case of psychology, the problem of coordination has dramatic implications in the sense that it severely constrains our ability to make meaningful theoretical claims. We discuss several examples and outline some of the solutions that are currently available.

保罗·米尔 (Paul Meehl) 的著名评论详述了许多阻碍心理科学有意义的理论进步的有问题的实践和概念混淆。通过整合 Meehl 的许多观点，我们认为心理学进展缓慢的原因之一是未能承认协调问题. 每当我们尝试测量不能直接观察但可以从可观察变量中推断出来的量时，就会出现这个问题。正如温度测量的历史分析所证明的那样，解决这个问题绝非易事。关键的挑战是规范理论概念和观察之间的功能关系。正如我们所证明的，仅凭经验方法无法确定这种关系。就心理学而言，协调问题具有重大意义，因为它严重限制了我们提出有意义的理论主张的能力。我们讨论了几个示例并概述了一些当前可用的解决方案。