Talk: Riet van Bork (UVA)

Title:

Measurement in a network approach to psychopathology

Abstract:

In Psychometrics -the field that is concerned with measurement in psychology- the standard model for measurement is the latent variable model. In a latent variable model of depression, the correlations between depression symptoms are explained through these symptoms all being manifestations of depression. However, it seems implausible that symptoms such as “insomnia” and “concentration problems” correlate only because they are both caused by depression. Rather, it seems plausible that they mutually reinforce each other. This change in theory about the relations between symptoms resulted in a network theory of mental disorders, in which the disorder is conceptualized as a system of symptoms that reinforce each other. While the use of network models has grown tremendously in many fields in psychology, it is unclear how a shift to such a different conceptualization of psychological constructs should inform the measurement of these constructs. That is, although network models are used to model, for example, the relations between depression symptoms, it is unclear how a network model of depression should provide ameasure of depression severity. In this talk, I will discuss some possible first steps in developing measurement theory for constructs that are conceptualized as networks, and the challenges involved.