SOME PATHOLOGIES IN THE STUDY OF PATHOLOGIES - A COMMENT

In a recent paper Anders Jansson (1994) argued that a certain set of m aladaptive behavior can be seen as antecendent to bad performance rath er than as a consequence of control problems when dealing with the dyn amic system ''Moro''. It is outlined in this paper: (a) that the patho logies are not clearly defined, thus leading to the situation that two pathologies with an identical set of indicators lead to opposite empi rical results; (b) that the observation of pathologies cannot be free from influences due to feedback of results; (c) that indicators of imp ortant variables are missing, namely information about subjects' model s and knowledge; (d) that the theoretical model which the author comes up with reflects linear thinking and may, thus, be in itself ''pathol ogical''. For these reasons Jansson's arguments are evaluated as being not convincing.