The road to freedom: Quantitative developmental methodology in the third millennium

In this article we ask three questions. First, what is the relationship bet ween substantive psychological research and research in the area of applied quantitative, statistical methods! Second, what is the development that ap plied quantitative methodology will undergo in the foreseeable future! Thir d, will this development affect the future of psychological research! The a nswers to these questions are cast in terms of six trends and three anticip ated problems. The trends are: (1) increase in the number of available stat istical methods; (2) substantive thinking triggers the development of new s tatistical methods; (3) statistical methods become increasingly flexible; ( 4) computers do the thinking; (5) there will be new paradigms such as the p erson-oriented perspective; and (6) statistical methods will be custom-tail ored to substantive questions. The general tenor of the discussion of these trends is that the number of possibilities will increase and the researche r will be heed from method-specific constraints. The three problem trends a re: (1) the choice between methods of analysis becomes increasingly difficu lt; (2) cases of misuse of statistics will become more frequent; and (3) th e role of the methodologist will change such that more substantive knowledg e will be required. In addition, issues of training of methodologists and f inancing research are discussed. The general outlook is depicted as encoura ging.