In this article, I critically reflect on J. F. Arocha’s (2021) contention that psychologists need to use methods and tools that are suitable for data analysis at the individual level. First, I discuss the beleaguered nature of the philosophical underpinnings of the standard practices in psychological research. Of the five assumptions he presented, the aggregate assumption results in Simpson’s paradox, a form of ecological fallacy. While the other assumptions need urgent attention, the proposals Arocha makes for addressing the aggregate assumption are still unsettled in many ways. I show that while perceptual control theory informed by the Aristotelian concept of final cause or telos allows for embracing variability as a psychological fact of human behaviour, one cannot say the same for his recommendation for the use of observation-oriented modelling (OOM) to address the aggregate assumption or to circumvent Simpson’s paradox.

在本文中，我批判性地反思了 JF Arocha (2021) 的论点，即心理学家需要使用适合在个人层面进行数据分析的方法和工具。首先，我讨论了心理学研究中标准实践的哲学基础的困境。在他提出的五个假设中，综合假设导致了辛普森悖论，这是一种生态谬误。虽然其他假设需要紧急关注，但 Arocha 提出的解决总体假设的建议在许多方面仍未得到解决。我表明，虽然感性控制理论由亚里士多德概念获悉终极原因或终极目的考虑到将可变性作为人类行为的心理事实，人们不能对他使用面向观察的建模 (OOM) 来解决总体假设或规避辛普森悖论的建议说同样的话。