Measurement for a Human Science
Abstract
This paper argues a number of points about measurement in the sociology of mental health: (1) measurement is critical, (2) measures should represent and assess elements of human experience, taking measure of life as people feel it, sense it, and understand it, and (3) social scientists should create a human science, producing information for the people it studies so that they can better understand and control their own lives. We argue that a human science is best achieved with the use of indexes, not diagnoses, to measure mental health. We present a brief history of diagnostic instruments and detail how a diagnosis is made. We show how use of diagnoses to measure mental health discounts much human suffering. They dichotomize the true range of feelings and emotions into crude either/or distinctions that do not reflect the reality of people's lives, and they often exclude suffering such as that due to loss or illness that does not meet medical model preconceptions about mental disorder. Using diagnoses to measure mental health presents a reified image of hidden disease knowable and manageable only by trained professionals--beyond the capacity of the suffering individuals to understand and control.
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“As argued by social stress researchers, measures of psychological distress more readily capture how social conditions influence a continuum of mental well-being that diagnostic categories of mental disorder may mask (Mirowsky and Ross 2002; Pearlin 1999).”
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Suicidal Ideation, Psychological Distress and Child-To-Parent Violence: A Gender Analysis
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- Authors
- Mirowsky, J., & Ross, C. E.
- Affiliations
- The Ohio State University (US)
- ORCID
- Ross, Catherine E.
- Venue
- Journal of Health and Social Behavior
- Publisher
- SAGE Publications
- Published
- 2002-06
- Volume
- 43
- Issue
- 2
- Pages
- 152
- ISSN
- 0022-1465 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2331656655
- Cited by
- 378
- References
- 41
- Citations by year
- 2026: 22 · 2025: 26 · 2024: 28 · 2023: 18 · 2022: 36 · 2021: 27 · 2020: 22 · 2019: 17 · 2018: 16 · 2017: 45 · 2016: 12 · 2015: 13 · 2014: 20 · 2013: 7 · 2012: 16
- FWCI
- 22.07
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Journal of Health and Social Behavior (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › Philosophy › Mental Health and Psychiatry
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Psychology and Mental Health
- Social Sciences › Decision Sciences › Management Science and Operations Research › Psychometric Methodologies and Testing
- Keywords
- mental health measurement, human sciences, mental health index, psychiatric diagnosis, diagnostic tools, human suffering, emotions
- MeSH terms
- Attitude to Health, Mental Disorders, Diagnosis, Differential, Humans, Humanism, Mental Health, Sociology
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