Psychological methods最新文献

The development and evaluation of text classifiers in psychology depends on rigorous manual coding. Yet, the evaluation of manual coding and computational algorithms is usually considered separately. This is problematic because developing high-validity classifiers is a repeated process of identifying, explaining, and addressing conceptual and measurement issues during both the manual coding and classifier development stages. To address this problem, we introduce the Repeated Adjustment of Measurement Protocols (RAMP) method for developing high-validity text classifiers in psychology. The RAMP method has three stages: manual coding, classifier development, and integrative evaluation. These stages integrate the best practices of content analysis (manual coding), data science (classifier development), and psychology (integrative evaluation). Central to this integration is the concept of an inference loop, defined as the process of maximizing validity through repeated adjustments to concepts and constructs, guided by push-back from the empirical data. Inference loops operate both within each stage of the method and across related studies. We illustrate RAMP through a case study, where we manually coded 21,815 sentences for misunderstanding (Krippendorff's α = .79), and developed a rule-based classifier (Matthews correlation coefficient [MCC] = 0.22), a supervised machine learning classifier (Bidirectional Encoder Representations From Transformers; MCC = 0.69) and a large language model classifier (GPT-4o; MCC = 0.47). By integrating manual coding and classifier development stages, we were able to identify and address a concept validity problem with misunderstandings. RAMP advances existing methods by operationalizing validity as an ongoing dynamic process, where concepts and constructs are repeatedly adjusted toward increasingly widespread intersubjective agreement on their utility. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).

Mediation modeling using longitudinal data is an exciting field that captures the interrelations in dynamic changes, such as mediated changes, over time. Even though discrete-time vector autoregressive approaches are commonly used to estimate indirect effects in longitudinal data, they have known limitations due to the dependency of inferential results on the time intervals between successive occasions and the assumption of regular spacing between measurements. Continuous-time vector autoregressive models have been proposed as an alternative to address these issues. Previous work in the area (e.g., Deboeck & Preacher, 2015; Ryan & Hamaker, 2021) has shown how the direct, indirect, and total effects, for a range of time-interval values, can be calculated using parameters estimated from continuous-time vector autoregressive models for causal inferential purposes. However, both standardized effects size measures and methods for calculating the uncertainty around the direct, indirect, and total effects in continuous-time mediation have yet to be explored. Drawing from the mediation model literature, we present and compare results using the delta, Monte Carlo, and parametric bootstrap methods to calculate SEs and confidence intervals for the direct, indirect, and total effects in continuous-time mediation for inferential purposes. Options to automate these inferential procedures and facilitate interpretations are available in the cTMed R package. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).

The generally small but touted as "statistically significant" correlation coefficients in the social sciences jeopardize theory testing and prediction. To investigate these small coefficients' underlying causes, traditional equations such as Spearman's (1904) classic attenuation formula, Cronbach's (1951) alpha, and Guilford and Fruchter's (1973) equation for the effect of additional items on a scale's predictive power are considered. These equations' implications differ regarding large interitem correlations enhancing or diminishing predictive power. Contrary to conventional practice, such correlations decrease predictive power when treating items as multi-item scale components but can increase predictive power when treating items separately. The implications are wide-ranging. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).