An Examination of Least-Squares Regression Modeling of Catastrophe Theory

Although catastrophe theory appears to have substantial heuristic value in many areas of psychology, its acceptance has, to some extent, been hampered by the lack of a well-developed analytic framework. Two recent articles by Guastello (1987 , 1988) suggest that a change-score least-squares regression model provides a method for testing catastrophe theory models. This article reviews these regression analysis procedures. The problems in the approach are detailed, then demonstrated with computer-generated data sets. The results show that such regression approaches cannot adequately distinguish between data that has arisen from a true catastrophe model and data from a true linear model.