Works
- Convergent and Discriminant Validation by the Multitrait-Multimethod Matrix, Psychological Bulletin; with Donald W. Fiske, 1959
- Blind Variation and Selective Retentions in Creative Thought as in Other Knowledge Processes, Psychological Review, 1960
In Thinking Tools
Known for
A methodologist and philosopher of social science. With Donald Fiske he argued that a measure is valid only if it agrees with other measures of the same trait and disagrees with measures of different traits; he also cast creative and scientific discovery as variation followed by selective retention, the core of his evolutionary epistemology.
Caveat: Blind variation and selective retention as a theory of creativity has been debated for decades, and critics argue its key term, blindness, was never precisely defined.