3658925934

V. Methodology, Methods, and Quantification
If one strength of Tarde’s formulations with regard to personality lies in demonstrating its close
interdependence with social structure and culture, a second is found in his astute remarks regarding
quantification and measurement. Central to Tarde’s work on personality was the belief that thinking
would best advance if more attention were devoted to quantification. The opening sentence of his
“Belief and Desire” asserted a basic thesis of the article: “Among many continuous dimensions that
the soul seems to present us with . . . it would be scientifically desirable to isolate one or two real
quantities which, while everywhere mixed with the qualitative elements of sensations, would lend
themselves in theory or in practice to measurement.” 64 As core materials of personality, and as the
basic elements diffusing throughout societies via the process of imitation, belief and desire, Tarde
held, were the fundamental elements for social scientists to measure.
Reviewing alternative methodologies for this program, Tarde finds fault with the assumptions of
Bentham’s “hedonistic calculus” as well as with approaches based on probability theory. They all
err, says Tarde, for the same basic reason: not only do they assume a completely logical model of
attitude formation, wherein all objective advantages and disadvantages of a given course of action are
rationally calculated, but they also go so far as to claim that the net result of this rational calculus is
equal to a person’s attitudes. A procedure derived from these assumptions can provide the
“mathematical reasons for believing,” from which point one can compute the probability that an
individual will hold a certain belief. But Tarde stressed that calculating these “credibilities” or
“desirabilities” behind certain beliefs or desires is by no means an adequate substitute for directly
measuring them.
Tarde was fascinated by the suggestive methodology of the psychophysicians for computing a
mathematical relationship between the size of an objective stimulus (analogous to the “credibility” of
the logicians above), and the objective response to that stimulus. 65 He did not, however, think it
possible to establish a constant relationship between objective probabilities and subjective attitudes
in the same way that the Fechner and Weber laws expressed the relationship between the size of an
objective stimulus and a subjective response—and in this matter his position was consistent with
contemporary thought on attitude measurement. 66
How, then, is one to measure attitudes? One solution is to adopt a behavoristic perspective and to
observe—and count—the muscular movements and other observable behaviors manifested by a
person. Tarde was plainly dissatisfied with the grossness of such a solution and lamented the absence
of a more precise method for measuring internal attitudes. Still, it should be stressed that unlike many
of his French, 67 and particularly his German, contemporaries, 68 Tarde saw as the primary obstacles to
the development of such techniques a lack of general societal interest and a paucity of research; at no
point did he question the validity of such efforts on epistemological grounds. And this holds not only
for the difficulties in measuring individual attitudes but also for the legitimacy of aggregating them in
order to derive a measure of general public opinion. 69
The practical individual is too fascinated with action and concrete behavior to investigate
systematically the degrees of certainty or conviction with which people carry out a particular activity.
“A desire, like an opinion, can be used to manage public or private business, by vote or notarized act,
only if it is considered absolute and not relative. The man of action appears to give himself
completely to everything he undertakes and indeed believes he does so.” 70
On the other hand, some writers, including such eminent philosophers and littérateurs as Cournot,
Renan, and Sainte-Beuve, have continually stressed the importance of the distinction between