One of the key reasons why my model inspires me is its predictive potential ! Unlike other psychological theories which are based on statistical data, we use a model which is built on a set of verifiable postulates from which the rest of the predictions are derived. It is here that we have an edge over conventional psychologists who think human behaviour is too complex to be modelled by numbers and functions.
Reminds me of the situation in biology before Darwin, when all that was possible was to observe and record data about the innumerable kinds of plants and animals our planet hosts. But once we had a theory built on verifiable postulates - the theory of natural selection, we were able to predict what kind of organisms survive an evolutionary phase in a particular environment and hence predict what kind of beings might inhabit an ecosystem.
Also reminds me of the situation in economics, national planning and warfare before game theory. When all you could do was to send out your best orders and hope that the opponent does something that will benefit you. But once we had the simplest of framework in hand, we were able to predict how a market would behave, how nations make decisions and so on.
And so, we make predictions, verifiable statements about learning, altruism, decision making time, dream frequency, laziness and a hundred other things that form a part of our everyday lives ! Most of them are already known observations and hence the so called predictions turn out to be explanations. And the remaining few, we hope will be found true. But what strikes me is that all of these statistically/inductively known facts are now reasoned out by using a minimal set of postulates on which we have built out model. That, I see as the biggest boost to my confidence in the model; like we say in physics - "The theory was so beautiful that it had to be true."
Reminds me of the situation in biology before Darwin, when all that was possible was to observe and record data about the innumerable kinds of plants and animals our planet hosts. But once we had a theory built on verifiable postulates - the theory of natural selection, we were able to predict what kind of organisms survive an evolutionary phase in a particular environment and hence predict what kind of beings might inhabit an ecosystem.
Also reminds me of the situation in economics, national planning and warfare before game theory. When all you could do was to send out your best orders and hope that the opponent does something that will benefit you. But once we had the simplest of framework in hand, we were able to predict how a market would behave, how nations make decisions and so on.
And so, we make predictions, verifiable statements about learning, altruism, decision making time, dream frequency, laziness and a hundred other things that form a part of our everyday lives ! Most of them are already known observations and hence the so called predictions turn out to be explanations. And the remaining few, we hope will be found true. But what strikes me is that all of these statistically/inductively known facts are now reasoned out by using a minimal set of postulates on which we have built out model. That, I see as the biggest boost to my confidence in the model; like we say in physics - "The theory was so beautiful that it had to be true."