FOMO-Psy: Formal Modeling of Psychological Theories

A 15-week course

Note: The material will (initially) be some mixture of German and English. Your mileage may vary.

The course has 15 sessions, each lasting 3.5h. In between sessions, homework is given.

Each session will be a mix of three elements:

  1. Theoretical input (see Lectures)
  2. Skills: Learn new skills (e.g., git, Netlogo).
  3. Workshop: Apply your new skills while you work collaboratively on your models.

Sessions Overview

TBD

Relevant literature

Modeling methodology

  • Borsboom, D., van der Maas, H. L. J., Dalege, J., Kievit, R. A., & Haig, B. D. (2021). Theory Construction Methodology: A Practical Framework for Building Theories in Psychology. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 16(4), 756–766. https://doi.org/10.1177/1745691620969647
  • Guest, O., & Martin, A. E. (2021). How Computational Modeling Can Force Theory Building in Psychological Science. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 16(4), 789–802. https://doi.org/10.1177/1745691620970585
  • Leising, D., Grenke, O., & Cramer, M. (2023). Visual Argument Structure Tool (VAST) Version 1.0. Meta-Psychology, 7. https://doi.org/10.15626/MP.2021.2911
  • Wilson, R. C., & Collins, A. G. (2019). Ten simple rules for the computational modeling of behavioral data. ELife, 8, e49547. https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.49547

About theories

  • Glöckner, A., Fiedler, S., & Renkewitz, F. (2018). Belastbare und effiziente Wissenschaft: Strategische Ausrichtung von Forschungsprozessen als Weg aus der Replikationskrise. Psychologische Rundschau, 69(1), 22–36. https://doi.org/10.1026/0033-3042/a000384
  • Oberauer, K., & Lewandowsky, S. (2019). Addressing the theory crisis in psychology. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 26(5), 1596–1618. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13423-019-01645-2
  • Sutton, R. I., & Staw, B. M. (1995). What theory is not. Administrative Science Quarterly, 40(3), 371. https://doi.org/10.2307/2393788

Credit

Thanks goes to:

  • Noah van Dongen and Denny Borsboom for great inspiration from the ManyModelers Project (performed on SIPS 2022)
  • Noah van Dongen for providing his material for an TCM course
  • Lena Schiestel for her course material on constructs
  • Aaron Peikert, Maximilian Ernst and Caspar van Lissa for several discussions and inspirations about technical aspects of theory versioning
  • …