Constructed Measures and Causal Inference: Towards a New Model of Measurement for Psychosocial Constructs.

ABSTRACT: Psychosocial constructs can only be assessed indirectly, and measures are typically formed by a combination of indicators that are thought to relate to the construct. Reflective and formative measurement models offer different conceptualizations of the relation between the indicators and what is sometimes conceived of as a univariate latent variable supposed to correspond in some way to the construct. I argue that the empirical implications of reflective and formative models will often be violated by data since the causally relevant constituents will generally be multivariate, not univariate. These empirical implications can be formally tested but factor analysis is not adequate to do so. I argue that formative models misconstrue the relation between the constructed measures and the underl

SUBMITTER: VanderWeele TJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8614532 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature