History and Principles of Q Steven Brown

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The History and Principles of Q Methodologyin Psychology and the Social Sciences

Steven R. Brown

Department of Political ScienceKent State University

Kent, Ohio (USA)

What has come to be referred to as Q methodology was introduced in a letter toNature,written by William Stephenson (1935a), a physicist (Ph.D. 1926, University of Durham) andpsychologist (Ph.D. 1929, University of London), who served as the last assistant to CharlesSpearman, the inventor of factor analysis. Spearman once referred to hisprotgas the mostcreative statistician in psychology, but from virtually the moment of its inception, thebroader considerations of Q as a methodology were destined to be controversial and to beshunned by most of academic psychology. Today, Q methodology is being widely adoptedin the social sciences, but for the most part is little remembered in psychology itself, save (inthe United States) for the technical procedure of Q sorting. Only recently has there beenevidence that a younger generation of psychologists is rediscovering Q methodology and

Abstract. Q methodology was innovated by British physicist/psychologist William

Stephenson (1902-1989), but has been applied and has continued to evolveprimarily in the United States and outside academic psychology, most notably inthe fields of communication and political science, and more recently in the healthsciences. The principles of Q methodology are restated, and contrasts are drawnwith the earlier understandings prevalent in 1930s British psychology, withcontemporary illustrative applications drawn from a variety of disciplines. Theconclusion is reached that adherence to an outdated Newtonianism plus concern forpsychometric assessment led British psychology to embrace R methodology and tomiss Q's parallels with quantum theory and its implications for a science ofsubjectivity, and that postmodern developments have enabled social scientists,including a new generation of British psychologists, to reestablish contact with Qmethodology and to take advantage of the leverage which it provides inunderstanding human behavior.

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becoming acquainted with the vision which William Stephenson promoted for more than ahalf century.

Stephenson's most celebrated work was The Study of Behavior: Q-technique and ItsMethodology (1953), and something of the controversy surrounding Q and its originator canbe glimpsed by revisiting some of the reviews which greeted this publication. Charlotte

Banks (1954) of Britain, for instance, while noting "Stephenson's cheerful belligerence," his"lively and entertaining style," and his "new and original ideas," also implied that some ofhis innovations had been preceded by Stern and Burt in particular. Banks may have beenencouraged in this regard by Burt (1955) himself, who also referred to Stern's prior work asa way to assert his own position contra Stephenson--namely, that "if we confine ourselves tomeasurements obtained on a single occasion, we may either average the persons andcorrelate the traits, or average the traits and correlate the persons." Thus, for Burt, there wasalways only a single matrix of data that was at issue, and multiple ways to average acrossthat matrix. The most stinging criticism perhaps came from Eysenck (1954), who accusedStephenson of "a somewhat disingenuous tendency to change the meaning of the term Q-

technique over the years, whilst pretending that what he now means by it is what he hasmeant by it all along."

In the United States, McNemar (1954) criticized the author ofThe Study of Behaviorforbeing obscure and for attacking "such intellects as Godfrey Thomson and Cyril Burt," andwas especially skeptical of the value of single-case studies. In the most thorough critique, towhich Stephenson (1954a) was invited to respond, Cronbach and Gleser (1954) summarizedtechnical innovations such as card sorting and the incorporation of Fisher's principles ofexperimental design, but then issued a warning: "It is imperative to discourage students ofersonality and social psychology from copying Stephenson's designs as he presents

them" (p. 330, emphasis in original). Stephenson's alleged showiness and carelessness werealso noted. Finally, Turner (1955) accused the author of Q methodology of "misplacedcontentiousness," "repetitiousness," of "dwelling on irrelevancies" and making "excessiveclaims," and of "apparent unfamiliarity with much work others have done," but alsoconcluded that Q would "undoubtedly stand with Guttman scaling as one of the two mostimportant recent contributions to technique."

Once a step is taken outside academic psychology and psychometry, however, the moodchanges somewhat. Psychiatrist Bernard Glueck (1954) welcomed Q as furnishing "thelong-awaited stable and dependable frame of reference" for addressing the "universality ofuniqueness." Russell Ackoff (1955), one of the founders of operations research, predictedthat "this book will have to be taken into account in psychological methodology for a longtime to come." And psychotherapist Lyman Wynne, while noting Stephenson's "florid andrather megalomanic style of writing," also stated that the book would have "widespread,immediate appeal to the clinical investigator in psychiatry and related fields." Social workerGershenson (1955), on the other hand, while complaining that The Study of Behaviorconstituted "a running argument between the author and his critics," acknowledged thatmuch of what seemed to him incomprehensible stemmed from the lack of statisticalsophistication of his field.




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The Roots of the Q-R Controversy

Much of the confusion concerning the relationship between Q and R as factor-analytic

procedures arose due to the fact that what Cyril Burt meant by "correlating persons" (Burt,1937, 1940) and what Stephenson meant by it (Stephenson, 1935b, 1953) were, in at leasttwo respects, quite separate things, a matter about which at one point they agreed to disagree(Burt & Stephenson, 1939):

For Burt, both factor systems had foundations in one and only one basic data matrixwhich was typically filled with scores from objective tests, e.g., of intelligence, readingspeed, or mathematical ability; whereas,

For Stephenson, two separate data matrices were at issue, the one containing objectivemeasures (R) and the other containing data of a subjective kind (Q).

When Burt insisted on the reciprocity of Q and R, therefore, a principle to which he adhereduntil the very end (Burt, 1972), he was referring to two complementary matrixmanipulations (one by columns, the other by rows) of the same transposed data matrix,whereas for Stephenson (1953), "There never was a single matrix of scores to which both Rand Q apply" (p. 15).

From his very first pronouncement, Stephenson (1935a) made clear that R methodologyreferred to "a selected population ofn individuals each of whom has been measured in mtests" (note the passive verb has been measured), and that Q methodology referred to "a

population ofn different tests (or essays, pictures, traits or other measurable material), eachof which is measured or scaled by m individuals" (note the active verb is measured). In theformer case, something is done to the person, as when we take blood pressure or measureheight: This is the objective mode and the person's stance relative to measurement is passive.In the latter case, the person actively does something, i.e., measures or scales a population ofmeasurable material: This is the subjective mode insofar as measurement is from theperson's standpoint. As Stephenson (1935b) later stated, "Previously individuals obtainedscores; now the tests get them instead, due to the operation of the individuals upon them" (p.19), and in the first worked example which he presented, a group of persons rank-ordered aset of colors in terms of their pleasingness, which is clearly subjective. These two modes are

incommensurate (Brown, 1972) and in this sense nonreciprocal, and it is also in this sensethat Q methodology provides the basis for a science of subjectivity (Brown, 1994-1995).

What is fundamentally at issue was originally suggested by Stephenson (1936a) and hasbeen most clearly demonstrated in a study of 25 bodily measurements--arm length, thighwidth, foot length, etc.--each in inches for 20 persons (for details, consult Brown, 1972,1980, p. 13). When submitted to an R factor analysis, the outcome was a segmentation ofbody parts across eight factors, with shoulder width, arm length, width of palm, and footlength (among others) significant in one factor, chest and waist width in another factor, and




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so forth. Breaking wholes into parts (analysis) is what R factor analysis does. When theoriginal data matrix was transposed, however, and then refactored, the result was a singledimension accounting for 99% of total variance, a reflection of the fact that people arephysically about the same. Keeping parts together in their interrelation (synthesis) is what Qfactor analysis does. After correlating and factoring persons, the factor scores (nowassociated with body parts) were given to an artist who was asked to draw a body

proportionate to the scores, and the recognizably-human result is shown in Figure 1a.

The prior results rely on the same data matrix, and the measurements are in the objectivemode: A person's arm is so-many inches long and there is very little that can be done about

that fact, and this holds true whether correlating traits or persons. This is Burt's version ofcorrelating persons. Stephenson's version, however, involves a separate matrix of subjectivedata, and this was effected in this instance by instructing the same 20 individuals to assessthe same body parts in terms of their "significance for me." The four resulting Q factorsrevealed different saliencies relative to the body parts included in the sample: The firstfactor, for example, placed great emphasis on eyes, head, and mouth, which received thehighest factor scores; whereas the second factor placed most emphasis on trunk, hips, andchest. As before, the factor scores for the first Q factor were also submitted to an artist,whose depiction is in Figure 1b.

It is noteworthy that the outcome of the R factor analysis above cannot be given artistic formin the same manner as Figure 1 due to the fact that R dissembles reality so that all the King'sartists cannot put it back together again. However, neither can the grotesqueness of Figure1b relative to 1a be considered indicative of the accuracy of Burt's approach to correlatingpersons compared to Stephenson's; rather, it arises from the expression in material form oftwo phenomena, only one of which is actually material. Physical extension, such as armlength, is easily pictured in spatial terms, but subjectivity is not spatial in this physical sense,and much of Psychology's difficulty with Q methodology can be attributed to thisconceptual distinction. Stephenson was concerned to bring the elusiveness of subjectivity

Figure 1a Figure 1b




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under the suzereignty of the same science that he had come to know so well as a physicist,and to employ the technology of factor analysis to this end. Academic Psychology,meanwhile, was preoccupied with a search for objective abilities and universals, such asSpearman's g and Eysenck's introversion-extraversion, which are also expressed as factorsbut which leave no room for subjectivity (except as error variance).

Burt's version of correlating persons had the additional advantage of retaining a familiarpsychometric world: The objective measurements that provided the basis for correlatingtraits were also the basis for correlating persons, and so no new concepts were necessary,only a different way of looking at them. As Stephenson was aware, however, the study ofsubjectivity required a different way of thinking that moved away from conventional factoranalysis, with its roots in Newtonian dimensions and causality, and in the direction of newdevelopments in science and alternative ways of conceiving human behavior that are onlynow beginning to come into vogue. The major difference between Burt and Stephenson,therefore, turned not on the mechanics of factor analysis, but on what it was that was to bemeasured, and how.

The Current Status of the Q-R Controversy

More than a half century has elapsed since Cyril Burt and William Stephenson squared offagainst one another, and there is little doubt that Burt's version of the connection between Qand R has had the more pronounced effect: It makes sense to a scientific worldviewpopulated by causes, effects, and variables. His elaboration of P, Q, R, and other techniques(all related to one and the same basic data matrix) became foundational for other eminentfactorists, such as Raymond Cattell, Hans Eysenck, J.P. Guilford, Godfrey Thomson, and

L.L. Thurstone, no less than the two generations of psychometricians who followed theirlead, so that it has become virtually impossible to read a standard text on factor analysiswithout learning that Q and R are based on transpositions of the same data matrix, hence arereciprocal.

This dominant point of view has come to be more widely questioned during the past twodecades, however, as a new generation of health, social, and psychological scientists hasgained a deeper appreciation of what Stephenson was trying to say. The current status of theQ-R debate is revealed in a recent study which utilizes Q methodology to examine thediverse understandings of Q methodology itself. The inquiry is reported in detail elsewhere

(Brown, 1993), and it had its beginnings in differences of opinion about the nature of Qmethodology which were posted on one of the many electronic discussion groups found onthe Internet. Most of the comments expressed will come as little surprise to those familiarwith the issues, and include the following:

It is intended to get at patterning within individuals (case-wise) rather than simplyacross individuals (factor-wise sorting).

It uses an ipsative technique of sorting a representative set of subjective statements




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drawn from a concourse of possible feelings or reactions about a subjective condition.

Row standardization is implicit in computer correlations between row vectors. Data areexamined relative to the individual's mean.

SPSS (with its Flip routine) and SAS are generally inappropriate since they assume

reciprocity.

Statements of this kind are subjective in the sense in which Stephenson meant the terminasmuch as they emanate from a particular vantagepoint: They are assertions and as suchare rarely subject to proof or disproof, which is not to say that evidence and argument cannotbe amassed in favor of each. The volume of statements on a topic was originally referred toas apopulation or trait universe (Stephenson, 1950, 1953), but has been rechristenedconcourse (Stephenson, 1978) to connote the running together of ideas in thought.Concourse is the common coinage of societies large and small, and is designed to covereverything from community gossip and public opinion to the esoteric discussions of

scientists and philosophers.

From the larger body of statements is drawn a Q sample designed to represent the rangeof subjective communicability in the concourse and to be used for experimental purposes.To assist in achieving representativeness in the Q sample, Stephenson typically relied onprinciples of experimental design (Fisher, 1935)--for instance, in the above case, by drawingstatements representing the views of (a) Stephenson and (b) Burt, respectively, and also byincluding statements addressing technical as opposed to (d) philosophical matters, allstatements being incorporated into a 22 factorial with four cells: ac, ad, bc, and bd. m=5replications of each combination resulted in a Q sample of sizeN=20 which, althoughsomewhat small by most standards, is quite adequate for demonstrating the principlesinvolved in the application of Q methodology as currently employed.

The procedure ofQ sorting was considered something new in Banks' (1954), Eysenck's(1954), and Cronbach and Gleser's (1954) reviews ofThe Study of Behavior, although theonly thing truly new was the term itself: More than a decade before it even had a name,Stephenson employed what he came to call the Q sort in his very first published illustration(Stephenson, 1935b), in which a group of persons sorted a set of 60 colors from those theyliked best to those they liked least. Later, 15 adults sorted a set of 50 postcards (containingpictures of vases) from most to least aesthetically pleasing (Stephenson, 1936b), and 40 boysand 40 girls sorted the titles of 60 school examinations in terms of which they would prefer

most/least to sit for (Stephenson, 1936c). The operation was therefore not new in 1953.

Fundamentally, Q sorting calls for a person to rank-order a set of stimuli according to anexplicit rule (condition of instruction), usually from agree (+5) to disagree (-5), with scalescores provided to assist the participant in thinking about the task. The operation isinescapably subjective in the sense that the participant is sorting the cards from his or herown point of view, and it is this subjectivity which seems to have escaped Burt (1972):Referring to a 1915 study of his own in which observers scored children for the frequency




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with which they displayed certain emotions, he averred that "this method, I fancy, broadlycorresponds with what Stephenson calls a 'Q sort'" (p. 42), but the frequency with which anemotion occurs is objective and quite different from a person's asserting (via Q technique orsome other instrumental means) a preference for statementx over statementy, which issubjective.

In the study under consideration, the Q sample consisted of the 20 statements drawn fromthe concourse noted above. In a typical Q study, a sample of participants (P set) would beinvited to represent their own views about the Q-R debate by Q sorting the statements fromagree (+3) to disagree (-3) in a forced, quasinormal distribution single-centered around eachperson's own mean of zero. For purposes of demonstration, however, actual participantswere foregone and instead various viewpoints were simulated as Q sorts: A Q sorthypothetically representing Stephenson's position was created, for example, as well as onerepresenting Burt's point of view, and also one representing the view of Kerlinger (1964),whose chapter-length treatment of Q was the first in a major social science text. TheoreticalQ sorts were likewise constructed to represent the views of four main contributors

(designated A, B, C, and D below) to the aforementioned electronic mail discussion about Qmethodology from which the concourse was drawn. A Q sort was also theoreticallycomposed to represent the point of view about Q and R typically found in statistics texts,and another to represent a "quantum" standpoint, about which more will be said. Finally, myown point of view (the only nontheoretical Q sort) was added so as to make explicit thelocation of the observer's perspective relative to all others once the data had been factoranalyzed.

The above nine Q sorts were intercorrelated, resulting in a 99 correlation matrix amongpersons that reveals the degree of association of each Q sort with all the others. It is worth

emphasizing that the basic data matrix upon which the correlation matrix depends is whollysubjective in character, i.e., each Q sort is simply the perspective (simulated in thisillustration) of the person whose Q sort it is, and this is different from a data matrix filledwith objective characteristics such as the frequency with which an emotion occurs, orintelligence as measured by the WISC-R, or reading ability as determined by the number ofwords read per minute, and so forth. Unlike objective tests and traits, subjectivity is self-referential, i.e., it is "I" who believes that such-and-such is the case and who registers thatbelief by placing the statement toward the +3 pole of the Q-sort scoring continuum.

Likewise, the factor analysis of a correlation matrix such as described above leads tofactors ofoperant subjectivity (Stephenson, 1977), so named by virtue of the fact that theiremergence is in no way dependent upon effects built into the measuring device. Stephenson,in part, borrowed the concept of operant from the American behaviorist B.F. Skinner (1938,p. 20), who used it to refer to behavior that is not under the immediate control of an elicitingstimulus. Stephenson's real inspiration, however, he traced to an earlier comment by CharlesSpearman (1927): "... if only a test could be so fashioned as to eliminate all possibledifference in the subjects' manner of procedure, then this single test might by itselfconceivably afford a perfect measure ofg" (p. 241). Spearman was looking for some way tomeasure that general intellective ability (g) present in all cognitive activities from tying




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shoelaces to writing philosophical treatises; the problem was that specific tests (e.g., ofmathematical ability, reading ability, etc.) required specific abilities of their own, hencethere was no way to measure g without involving the effects of specific tests used inmeasuring it. This remains the bane of conventional R factor analysis, and also of any by-person factor analysis based on the same data matrix, for these factor outcomes mustinvariably fall back on the tests included in the analysis in order to explain the factors. In

this respect, R factor analysis skates dangerously near tautology.

This is not the case in Q methodology, and the reason it is not inheres in the character ofsubjectivity. Whereas it is true that statements for a Q sample are typically selected in termsof a factorial or other representation of a theory, the supposed a priori meaning of thestatements does not necessarily enter into the Q sorter's considerations when evaluatingthem: Participants inject statements with their own understandings. Objective measures(e.g., IQ tests) have right answers, but this is not the case within the realm of subjectivity,and it is for this reason that Stephenson always utilized factor analysis rather than varianceanalysis in analyzing data obtained from Q technique: Variance analysis relies on the a

riori meanings built into a sample of Q statements, hence is tied to prestructured effects inprecisely the same way as R methodology; Q factor analysis, on the other hand, more nearlyretains the meanings which participants give to the statements by preserving the operationsinvolved in ordering the statements, i.e., it is the participants' actual operations in Q sortingthat give rise to the factors. The factors which emerge are therefore categories of operantsubjectivity, and consequently have a pristine quality missing in the factors of Rmethodology.

The factors which emanated from the study under consideration are shown in Table 1,which shows two factors, one of them bipolar. Q sorts A to D represent the views of four

individuals who were actively involved in the electronic mail discussion in which the natureof Q methodology was being considered. Three of them (A, C, and D) join with Burt andwith that version of Q most often encountered in textbook discussions of factor analysis:The positive pole of Factor I, then, is the conventional position which has become canonizedin texts and fixed in the minds of the current generation of psychometricians, whereas theopposite end of the factor represents Stephenson's position. The leading ideas of these twovantagepoints can be seen in those statements which received the highest factor scores in thetwo poles:

Conventional view: (11) The idea is to come up with a set of traits that characterizeindividuals, then compare individuals for the distribution of these sets.... (13) It isintended to get at patterning within individuals (case-wise) rather than simply acrossindividuals (factor-wise sorting).... (16) Factor scores can be tough to come by becausethe correlations are of reduced rank.... (19) The frequencies in the piles must berestricted to the frequencies that would be expected if you had a normal curve, witheach pile corresponding to an area of a normal curve.

Stephenson's position: (5) Centroid factor analysis is recommended since itsindeterminacy is compatible with quantum theory and, at the rotational stage, with




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interbehavioral principles.... (18) Q has never involved the correlation and factoranalysis by rows of the same matrix of data that is analyzed by columns in Rmethodology.... (2) Q methodology is a set of procedures, theory, and philosophysupporting the study of the same kind of subjectivity that is the focal point of muchqualitative research... (9) Cluster analysis is really something quite different and has nocommitment to that subjectivity which is central to Q methodology.

Table 1Perspectives on Q Methodology

Factors

Significant loadings in boldface; othersinsignificant. (Source: Brown, 1993)

Hence, the conventional end of factor I agrees strongly with statements 11 and 13 anddisagrees with 5 and 18, whereas the reverse is the case at the negative end of the factor. Atthe Burt end of the factor we see the familiar emphasis on traits and on measurement basedon individual differences (statement 11), as well as an assumption of a single data matrixunderlying case-wise vs. trait-wise patterns (13, 16). At the Stephenson end of the factor, byway of contrast, there is a denial of reciprocity (18, 9), an embracing of subjectivity, and anexpressed preference for centroid factor analysis due to its compatibility with quantumtheory and interbehaviorism (5), the latter associated with behaviorist J.R. Kantor (1959).

Before moving on to a fuller consideration of Stephenson's less-understood position, it isworth bringing factor II into the picture. This factor, as shown in Table 1, is orthogonal tothe Burt-Stephenson debate and is defined by Kerlinger and also by one of the participantsin the electronic mail discussion who was familiar with Kerlinger's (1964) chapter, whichstresses the importance of the variance design of Q samples and of establishing theunambiguous meaning of statements. The character of this position can be seen in those

Q Sorts I II

1 A 82 32

2 B 14 863 C 93 05

5 Stephenson 90 04

6 Burt 83 29

7 Kerlinger 31 89

8 textbook 84 30

9 quantum - 83 -14

10 Brown - 87 13




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statements with high positive and negative factor scores:

Factor II most agree: (1) It permits the a priori structuring of hypotheses in the design of the Q setto be sorted.... (3) The method can be coupled with analysis of variance to test hypotheses.... (4)The interpretation of factors is more difficult if the Q sorts are internally inconsistent than whenthey are based on structured Q sets representing testable scientific hypotheses.... (20) It uses an

ipsative technique of sorting a representative set of subjective statements drawn from a concourseof possible feelings or reactions about a subjective condition.

Factor II most disagree: (5) Centroid factor analysis is recommended since its indeterminacy iscompatible with quantum theory and, at the rotational stage, with interbehavioral principles....(10) Variance designs are only used to represent theory. Testing is in terms of dependency factoranalysis.... (6) "Ipsative" generally applies to patterns of objective scores for persons, and has littleto do with the subjectivity intrinsic to Q methodology.

Factor II therefore represents something of a hybrid, which is why it is orthogonal to

factor I. There is a certain recognition that Q methodology is useful for the study ofsubjectivity (statement 20), a point which escaped the British factorists and their progeny,but at the same time this is mixed in with hypothesis-testing based on statement meaning,variance analysis, and adoption of the normative/ipsative nomenclature, all of which deviatefrom Q methodology as a science of subjectivity. This position, as noted, is associated inparticular with the work of Kerlinger, with whom Stephenson was acquainted while theformer was working on his doctorate at New York University and Stephenson was involvedin advertising in the New York City area following his years at Chicago, and just prior to hisbecoming Distinguished Professor of Advertising Research in the University of MissouriSchool of Journalism. As is apparent, Kerlinger caught some of the spirit of Q methodology,

but failed to free himself of many of the presuppositions of R methodology.

Main Principles of Q Methodology

There was little room for Stephenson's views when he originally enunciated them in thelatter half of the 1930s. This was in part due to Cyril Burt's overshadowing influence inBritish psychology (which helps account for why Stephenson took his family to the UnitedStates following the war), and partly to the character and complexity of what Stephensonhad to say. With a long list of eminent factor analysts arrayed against him--including thelikes of Burt, Banks, Cattell, Eysenck, Thomson (to a lesser extent), McNemar, and others--it became an easy matter to dismiss him as unclear, careless, and lacking in other intellectualvirtues. There is mounting evidence, however, that the tide is turning and that a newgeneration of British psychologists in particular, and also a growing number of health andsocial scientists, are beginning to take an interest in Stephenson's ideas and to glimpse thevision that escaped his contemporaries (see, for example, Curt, 1994; R. Stainton Rogers,1995; W. Stainton Rogers, 1991; Stenner & Marshall, 1995).

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Space precludes going into great detail concerning the principles of Q methodology, but itis useful to touch base with at least some of the more fundamental. As will be seenthroughout, the concepts and principles which Stephenson advanced were influenced by histraining in both physics and psychology, as Logan (1991) has made clear.

Subjective Communicability

First and foremost is the axiom of subjectivity and its centrality in human affairs.Subjectivity is everywhere, from the loftiest philosophizing and diplomatic negotiating tothe street talk of the juvenile gang and the self-talk of the daydreamer, and it is the purposeof Q technique to enable the person to represent his or her vantagepoint for purposes ofholding it constant for inspection and comparison. Communicability of this kind is typicallyshared, i.e., a matter ofconsciring (Stephenson, 1980), and is consequently about fairlyordinary things--about soccer, yesterday's debate in Parliament, the scandal surroundingPresident Clinton's fund-raising activities, the opening of a new play, and anything elseunder the sun. What is considered "ordinary" will, of course, depend on context, so that eventhe above study about Q methodology was about a fairly ordinary topic among thoseentering into that discussion: Each participant generally understood what the others weretalking about.

R methodology, on the other hand, has almost wholly to do with assessments of one kindor another (of intelligence, mathematical ability, social anxiety, and such), and theseassessments are typically of traits about which the participant is at best only dimly aware--i.e., the measurements are not about the kinds of ordinary things that enter into sharedcommunicability; rather, they represent specialized knowledge and stand outside life as it islived moment to moment. Two individuals may be assessed for their intelligence, for

instance, yet be none the wiser about what the assessment was for; afterwards, however,they may enter into all manner of discussion about their experiences--e.g., "I didn't like themath part, but then I never was good at numbers," or "I kind of liked putting those blockstogether," or "What did you think about those pictures? I know we were supposed to saysomething about them, but my mind just went blank," and on and on. Q models thiscommunicative situation and provides measures for it, just as R provides measures forintelligence and other traits, and neither is convertible into the other through transposition orany other matrix manipulation.

Q technique can, of course, be used for assessment purposes, as indicated in Block's

(1961) well-known monograph and as Stephenson (1954b) himself has shown, but this canbe accomplished in at least two different ways. When Block's California Q-Set is employed,it is invariably the psychologist who uses it as a way to provide an overall portrayal of theperson under scrutiny, as Miller, Prior, and Springer (1987), for example, havedemonstrated: This provides an "external" perspective on the person, but says nothingdirectly about the structure of subjectivity (except, perhaps, that of the psychologist whoperformed the Q sort!). The alternative is to include the "internal" perspective by permittingthe person to provide Q sorts that become part of the assessment, thereby including the




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subjective record alongside the person's other "vital signs" (Stephenson, 1985).

Quantum Theoretical Aspects

Related to subjective considerations was Stephenson's recognition, as well as Burt's (1938),that the mathematics of factor analysis and Heisenberg's matrix mechanics were virtuallyidentical. Subjective communicability is indeterminant, as are the Q factors which documentthat subjectivity. During a typical discussion over dinner or a game of cards, for instance, itis impossible to predict who will speak next or what that person will say, and the same istrue at the individual level, e.g., in day dreaming, in the free associations of thepsychoanalytic hour, or in the soliloquy of a Molly Bloom in Joyce's Ulysses (Stephenson,1991). For Burt, factor analysis and quantum theory were linked by analogy only, and thiswas due in large part to the phenomena being measured: R methodology measures objectivevariables, such as intelligence, whereas quantum mechanics measures not variables, butstates (of energy). R methodology therefore remains necessarily within the classicalparadigm of Newtonian mechanics and of determinant causation (hence of reductionism),and this remains true even when its basic data matrix is transposed and recorrelated by rows:As shown in Figure 1a (supra), Burt's version of correlating persons keeps the previouslyunderstood world intact.

In Q methodology, by way of contrast, the quantum character of subjectivity is not ananalogy, but a reality, although its theory is rooted in Spearman's factor theory rather than inphysics; moreover, it gains meaning in relation to actual measurements (Brown, 1992;Stephenson, 1988, p. 180). In classical mechanics, each effect is determined by a cause, andthis remains intrinsic to the logic of dependent and independent variables; in quantum

theory, however, there are no quantities that determine an individual subatomic collision,and similarly in Q methodology "there is no quantity hitherto put forward to explain apsychological event that determines operant factors" (Stephenson, 1995-1996, p. 3n). Inshort, Q technique does not measure variables as such, but states of mind; and when Qstudies are made of single cases, several factors are typically shown to exist simultaneouslyin a state ofcomplementarity (Stephenson, 1986), i.e., communicability exists in variousstates of probability. Moreover, the complementarity at issue in Q methodology, as inparticle physics, is a function of measurement rather than a vague metaphor: It is the Qfactors which are in a relationship of complementarity. Finally, measurement and meaningare as inextricably entwined in Q as in Heisenberg's uncertainty principle: The observer of

the person's subjectivity is the person him- or herself (rather than the external scientist), andit is the person who also provides the Q-sort measurements.

Operantcy and Interbehaviorism

Operantcy, as noted previously, can be traced to Skinner, and before that to Spearman andWatson, who were on the trail of this idea even before it became a central principle inphysics. Science deals with operations associated with confrontable events, and in Qmethodology self and subjectivity are rendered operational through Q technique. In the




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process of Q sorting, the person operates with statements or other measurable stimuli byrank-ordering them under some experimental condition. The operation is subjectiveinasmuch as it is me rather than someone else who is providing a measure ofmy point ofview, and the factors which emerge are therefore categories ofoperant subjectivity(Stephenson, 1977).

The factors are also naturalistic in the sense that they are naturally-occurring events(Brown, forthcoming): The statements, unlike scale items, are naturally rendered (usually inthe course of interviews) and in no way implicate variables or pretend to be a test ofanything, and the Q sorts are a function of the person's understanding; hence, the factorswhich emerge from this process must, of necessity, be a natural consequence of all thatpreceded, and relatively uncontaminated by the scientist's intrusions. It is this naturalism, inpart, that drew Stephenson to the interbehavioral psychology of Kantor (1959) and to theconfluence of Kantor, Spearman, and quantum theory (Stephenson, 1982, 1984). Kantorwished to avoid the nonsecular metaphysics of surface effects as indirect indicators ofhidden causes and constructs, and to base human science on confrontable events and field

conditions, and this comported well with the presuppositions of a science of subjectivity(Smith & Smith, 1996). Kantor's was a thorough-going behaviorism, yet not of the"decontextualizing" variety about which Stenner and Marshall (1995, p. 634) complain;rather, field and contextual principles were central to it.

Interbehaviorism also entered into Q methodology itself at the stage of factor rotation.Unlike any other major factor analyst, Stephenson retained the centroid method of factoranalysis for essentially the same reason that others abandoned it--namely, because of itsstatistically imprecise nature. Given their imprecision, centroid factors were typically rotatedto simple structure so as to render them more determinant, but Stephenson saw in theirimprecision the opportunity to save this particular method of factor analysis from all of thedeterminant presumptions of the other methods and to use it as a way to probe subjectivespace. Just as a Q sorter interbehaves with statements, therefore, so does the factor analystinterbehave with factor space, so that theory and data can interact within their own fieldalso. It was because of this that Thompson (1962) was able to see that Stephenson's view offactor analysis, unlike those of Burt, Cattell, Eysenck, and others, could never be routinizedand reduced to generally applicable algorithms.

The Future of Q Methodology

It is perhaps too early for a definitive statement, but there are indications that adherents of Qmethodology have reached a critical mass and that interest in Stephenson's innovation willcontinue to rise in at least the short run. This renewed interest in Q technique and itsmethodology has been fortified by a number of recent initiatives:

The beginning in 1977 ofOperant Subjectivity, now in its nineteenth volume, ajournal/newsletter devoted to pursuing the implications of Stephenson's ideas and to




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providing a link among users of Q methodology in diverse fields.

The establishment in 1985 of the William Stephenson Communication ResearchCenter in the School of Journalism at the University of Missouri, USA.

The founding in 1989 of the International Society for the Scientific Study of

Subjectivity for the expressed purpose of pursuing Stephenson's ideas. (This eventrepresented the formalization of annual meetings that began in 1985; the fourteenthsuch meeting is scheduled for the autumn of 1998 in Seoul, Korea.) This event waspreceded in the same year by a conference at the University of Reading--attended byStephenson just two months prior to his death--in which studies utilizing Q in a Britishcontext were prominently displayed.

The initiation in 1991 of the Q-Method electronic mail discussion list, to which almost300 persons worldwide now subscribe. This facility has been supplemented by theQArchive (for the archiving of electronic versions of texts, software programs, etc.)

and by the Q-Method page on the World Wide Web.

The development in 1992 of the QMethod freeware package for mainframe computers,which now takes its place alongside the PCQ and QUANAL programs. QMethod hassince been expanded to provide PC versions for both IBM and Macintosh platforms.

In addition, Q methodology has begun to be featured at special panels and symposia invarious fields as interest in it has accelerated, and clusters of self-designated Qmethodologists are beginning to appear in various locales--e.g., in the psychologydepartments at the universities of Reading and East London (UK) and Central Oklahoma,Arizona, and Eastern Michigan (USA); in the political science departments at Kent State(USA) and Melbourne (Australia); in medical schools at Maryland and Illinois-Chicago; andin departments and schools of communication at Missouri, Nebraska, Syracuse, and Iowa(USA) and in Windsor (Canada).

But most important, perhaps, there has been a noticeable acceleration in the use ofStephenson's methodological innovation in studies of increasing sophistication in anexpanding number of intellectual fields--e.g., in marketing (Kleine, Kleine, & Allen, 1995),pharmacy (Mrtek, Tafesse, & Wigger, 1996), political science (Brown, 1980; Gillespie,1993; Peritore, 1990), child psychology (Taylor, Delprato, & Knapp, 1994), nursing andmedicine (Dennis & Goldberg, 1996), psychoanalysis (Edelson, 1989), public policy(Durning & Osuna, 1994), religion (Braswell, 1994; Parker, 1994-1995), publicadministration (Brown, Durning, & Selden, forthcoming; Sun, 1992), literary interpretation(Thomas & Baas, 1994) and communication, the latter having been stimulated primarily byStephenson's (1967) main contribution to the field. In addition, Q has turned out to be asignificant method of choice among those pursuing newer intellectual developments, such aspostmodernism (Grosswiler, 1997), deconstruction (Rebekah Stainton Rogers, 1993;Thomas, McCoy, & McBride, 1993), social construction (Curt, 1994; W. Stainton Rogers,




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1991), discourse analysis (Dryzek, 1994), identity theory (Davis, 1997), narrative analysis(Felkins & Goldman, 1993; Knight & Doan, 1994), feminism and women's issues (Febbraro,1995; Gallivan, 1994; Senn, 1993), and qualitative methods (Brown, 1996). A Qbibliography that stood at approximately 600 entries three decades ago (Brown, 1968) hasnow blossomed to nearly 2500.

William Stephenson was ahead of his time when he introduced his bright idea in 1935,and he remains in advance of much contemporary theorizing about the wellspring of humanaction and the methodological principles required for its study. The record is beginning toshow that he was not the muddled thinker that his critics pictured him to be, rather that hewas surprisingly consistent from the very start, although the focus on subjectivity becamesharper as he became more familiar with his invention. It is astonishing in retrospect thatStephenson was able to persevere with his views given the strong opposition to them and thelack of understanding all around him, and that he was able to do so is testament to anunusually strong spirit and uncommon reserves. Now that the main intellectual combatantshave passed on, the significance of his contribution is coming into sharper focus, and it is a

pleasure for those who knew him to see him increasingly restored to his proper place in thehistory of the human sciences.

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Source: http://facstaff.uww.edu/cottlec/QArchive/Bps.htm


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