After reading through some of the discussion here and discussing psycho-history with others, I have come to conclude that the major obstacle faced by psycho-history today is the lack of quantification of data. Psycho-history is a product of using statics and psychology to analyze and explain historical data. In order successfully incorporate statistics with psychology, we must define a few general terms which can be measured or quantified.

For example, if talking about changes in Mexico's political climate due to concentration of wealth, we must specify the parameters we think represent Mexico's political climate, as well as it's concentration of wealth. Parameters such as violence rate, or form of government can be used to represent a change in Mexico's political climate. The main purpose of these parameters is to give the researcher something which can be measured over a given period of time, allowing them to gather data and run statistical analysis relating to their hypotheses.

Please note that some parameters can be numerical values (such as violence rate) whicle some parameters are qualitative values which are measured as qualities rather than numbers (such as form of government, which can be Democratic, or Socialist, or many other things, but never 1 or 2).

With that in mind, I will attempt to define basic ideas in psycho-history and quantify them with parameters which can be measured and analyzed.


An analysis of group psychology of nations which forms the basis of psychology requires 3 main systems:

Economic System
Political System
Social System

The Economic System represents the economic enivornment of a nation. The following are some basic parameters which describe an Economic System.

Type of System (Qualitative) - Can be Capitalistic, Monopolistic or Socialistic
Average income per person (Numerical)
Average expenditure per person (Numerical)
Average savings (Numerical)
Average net worth (Numerical)


The Political System represents the judicial environment of a nation. The following are some basic parameters which describe a Political System.

Type of System (Qualitative) - Can be Democratic, Dictatorial, or Socialistic.
Revolution (Qualitative) - Can be Yes or No and represents an on going revolution


The Social system represents the Social environment of a nation. The following are some basic parameters which describe a Social System.

Average Violence Rate (Numerical)
Average Suicide Rate (Numerical)
Average Homicide Rate (Numerical)

There would be many more parameters for each system which come up as more people try to explain psycho-history. I will try to add any new parameters as I come across and add them to the list. If we start using the same parameters and terminology, we might end up seeing similarities in each other's writings.


The given example of Mexico, attempts to describe a change in the political system by analzying parameters in the economic system. The parameter which described the change in Mexico is Type of System, which is qualitative. The parameters of the economic systems analyzed are Average income per person, and Average income of top 10%. If the author's claim is that concentration of wealth in the hands of a few individuals causes a change in Mexico's political system, they are comparing these two parameters. The author can now hypothesize that change in these parameters lead to a change in the type of Political system, measure the two economic parametersfor the past 200 years and relate them to political changes. By doing so, the author will have statistically analyzed the data and predicted a change which can be measured in the future to validate or reject his hypothesis.

I know this isn't exactly psycho-history, and is more statitics based. But by doing so, we can make our predictions accurate and testable, making psycho-history a legitimate science. Quantifing the data and runnig analysis on it allows you to truly prove your theories as per the scientific method.

All of the statements you added in this post are great insights into psychohistory and will serve well to create the foundation of our new science. I believe that what you mentioned about using consistent terminology is true and may aid in producing the mathematics of psychohistory more efficiently. Some more parameters for the social factors may be average family size, as well as the percentage of the population above and below the poverty line.
-Psychology Lover