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Bailey DH, Jung AJ, Beltz AM, Eronen MI, Gische C, Hamaker EL, Kording KP, Lebel C, Lindquist MA, Moeller J, Razi A, Rohrer JM, Zhang B, Murayama K. Causal inference on human behaviour. Nat Hum Behav 2024; 8:1448-1459. [PMID: 39179747 DOI: 10.1038/s41562-024-01939-z] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/17/2023] [Accepted: 06/27/2024] [Indexed: 08/26/2024]
Abstract
Making causal inferences regarding human behaviour is difficult given the complex interplay between countless contributors to behaviour, including factors in the external world and our internal states. We provide a non-technical conceptual overview of challenges and opportunities for causal inference on human behaviour. The challenges include our ambiguous causal language and thinking, statistical under- or over-control, effect heterogeneity, interference, timescales of effects and complex treatments. We explain how methods optimized for addressing one of these challenges frequently exacerbate other problems. We thus argue that clearly specified research questions are key to improving causal inference from data. We suggest a triangulation approach that compares causal estimates from (quasi-)experimental research with causal estimates generated from observational data and theoretical assumptions. This approach allows a systematic investigation of theoretical and methodological factors that might lead estimates to converge or diverge across studies.
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Affiliation(s)
- Drew H Bailey
- School of Education, University of California, Irvine, Irvine, CA, USA.
| | - Alexander J Jung
- Hector Research Institute of Education Sciences and Psychology, University of Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany
| | - Adriene M Beltz
- Department of Psychology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA
| | - Markus I Eronen
- Department of Theoretical Philosophy, University of Groningen, Groningen, the Netherlands
| | - Christian Gische
- Department of Psychology, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Berlin, Germany
| | - Ellen L Hamaker
- Methodology and Statistics, Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences, Utrecht University, Utrecht, the Netherlands
| | - Konrad P Kording
- Department of Bioengineering, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA
- Department of Neuroscience, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA
| | - Catherine Lebel
- Alberta Children's Hospital Research Institute, Calgary, Alberta, Canada
- Department of Radiology, University of Calgary, Calgary, Alberta, Canada
| | - Martin A Lindquist
- Department of Biostatistics, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, USA
| | | | - Adeel Razi
- Turner Institute for Brain and Mental Health, School of Psychological Sciences, Monash University, Clayton, Victoria, Australia
- Monash Biomedical Imaging, Monash University, Clayton, Victoria, Australia
- Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging, Institute of Neurology, University College London, London, UK
- CIFAR Azrieli Global Scholars Program, CIFAR, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
| | - Julia M Rohrer
- Wilhelm Wundt Institute for Psychology, Faculty of Life Sciences, Leipzig University, Leipzig, Germany
| | - Baobao Zhang
- Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY, USA
| | - Kou Murayama
- Hector Research Institute of Education Sciences and Psychology, University of Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany
- Research Institute, Kochi University of Technology, Kochi, Japan
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Lundh LG. Person, Population, Mechanism. Three Main Branches of Psychological Science. J Pers Oriented Res 2023; 9:75-92. [PMID: 38107200 PMCID: PMC10722369 DOI: 10.17505/jpor.2023.25814] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/19/2023] Open
Abstract
There are different ways of dividing psychology into subdisciplines. The purpose of the present paper is to explore one specific meta-perspective on psychological science, seen as having three main branches: person psychology, population psychology, and mechanism psychology, linked to three different levels of research. Person-level research focuses on psychological phenomena as experienced and enacted by individual persons in their interaction with other persons and other parts of the environment, and in their development over time. Population-level research focuses on populations of individuals, frequencies of various psychological phenomena in a population, risk factors, and population-level effects of various psychological interventions. Mechanism-level research focuses on psychological functioning as explained in terms of neurophysiological mechanisms and information processes at a sub-personal level. It is argued that the failure to differentiate clearly between research questions at these three levels lead to questionable research practices. Most notably, a failure to differentiate clearly between the population level and the person level leads to problem-method mismatches in the form of researchers trying to answer questions about persons by research on populations. Also, because of a failure to differentiate between the person level and the mechanism level, explanations in terms of sub-personal mechanisms are too often seen as providing answers about what occurs at the person level, thereby failing to study persons as intentional agents in interaction with other persons and other parts of the environment. It is argued that a clear differentiation between three levels of psychological science - population, person, and mechanism - may contribute to an increased clarity in these matters and may thereby contribute to the development and maturation of psychological science.
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Boele S, Bülow A, Beltz AM, de Haan A, Denissen JJA, Keijsers L. The direction of effects between parenting and adolescent affective well-being in everyday life is family specific. Sci Rep 2023; 13:16106. [PMID: 37752173 PMCID: PMC10522680 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-023-43294-5] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/03/2023] [Accepted: 09/21/2023] [Indexed: 09/28/2023] Open
Abstract
Numerous theories and empirical studies have suggested that parents and their adolescent children reciprocally influence each other. As most studies have focused on group-level patterns, however, it remained unclear whether this was true for every family. To investigate potential heterogeneity in directionality, we applied a novel idiographic approach to examine the effects between parenting and adolescent well-being in each family separately. For 100 days, 159 Dutch adolescents (Mage = 13.31, 62% female) reported on affective well-being and four parenting dimensions. The family-specific effects of pre-registered ( https://osf.io/7n2jx/ ) dynamic structural equation models indeed revealed that a reciprocal day-to-day association between parenting and adolescent affective well-being was present only in some families, with the proportion of families displaying a reciprocal association varying across the four parenting dimensions (11-55%). In other families, either parenting predicted the adolescent's affective well-being (8-43%) or vice versa (10-27%), or no day-to-day associations were found (16-60%). Adolescents with higher trait levels of environmental sensitivity and neuroticism were more strongly affected by parenting. Thus, findings suggest that the ways in which parents and adolescents influence each other in everyday life are unique, stressing the need to move towards an idiographic parenting science.
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Affiliation(s)
- Savannah Boele
- Department of Psychology, Education and Child Studies, Erasmus University Rotterdam, P.O. Box 1738, 3000 DR, Rotterdam, The Netherlands.
| | - Anne Bülow
- Department of Psychology, Education and Child Studies, Erasmus University Rotterdam, P.O. Box 1738, 3000 DR, Rotterdam, The Netherlands
| | - Adriene M Beltz
- Department of Psychology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, USA
| | - Amaranta de Haan
- Department of Psychology, Education and Child Studies, Erasmus University Rotterdam, P.O. Box 1738, 3000 DR, Rotterdam, The Netherlands
| | - Jaap J A Denissen
- Department of Developmental Psychology, Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands
| | - Loes Keijsers
- Department of Psychology, Education and Child Studies, Erasmus University Rotterdam, P.O. Box 1738, 3000 DR, Rotterdam, The Netherlands
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Joshanloo M. Temporal associations between depressive symptoms, self-esteem, and satisfaction with family life: A 15-year study. Front Public Health 2023; 11:1144776. [PMID: 36992885 PMCID: PMC10040576 DOI: 10.3389/fpubh.2023.1144776] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/15/2023] [Accepted: 02/21/2023] [Indexed: 03/14/2023] Open
Abstract
Introduction In South Korea, depression has significant economic and social impacts, including increased healthcare costs and a relatively high suicide rate. Reducing the prevalence of depressive symptoms in the general population is therefore an important public health goal in this country. To achieve this goal, it is essential to identify the factors that may increase or decrease the risk of depression. This study examined the association between depressive symptoms and two indicators of wellbeing: self-esteem and satisfaction with family life. A primary objective was to examine whether higher self-esteem and satisfaction with family life could predict a decrease in depressive symptoms in the future. Methods A large representative sample was used, collected over a 15-year period with annual lags. The random intercept cross-lagged panel model was used to examine reciprocal associations between the 3 variables at the within-person level. Results All within-person effects were found to be reciprocal, significant, and in the expected direction. Thus, within-person deviations in any of the variables are associated with future within-person deviations in the other variables. Discussion These results suggest that indicators of positive mental health (self-esteem and satisfaction with family life) are protective factors against future depressive symptoms. In addition, depressive symptoms are risk factors for lower self-esteem and lower satisfaction with family life.
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Affiliation(s)
- Mohsen Joshanloo
- Department of Psychology, Keimyung University, Daegu, Republic of Korea
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Abstract
The first article in the present issue of JPOR is written by two pioneers in person-oriented research, John Nesselroade and Peter Molenaar. Among other things they argue that the individual is the primary unit of analysis for studying behaviour, and that this is in line with a growing emphasis on personalized diagnoses and treatment regimens in medicine, which reflects a renewed emphasis on focusing on the individual person. As was argued by Julia Moeller in a previous article in JPOR, however, psychological science seems to “lag behind” in this respect, with a concomitant risk of a credibility loss. One problem is that psychology still lack a coherent theoretical paradigm that places the person at the center of the stage. Some promising theoretical work on the concept of person has been carried out by researchers such as Mark Bickhard and Peter Ossorio, and it is possible that the future will see an increased cross-fertilization between (1) the theoretical development of a comprehensive model of the person and (2) methodological developments that facilitate the study of developmental processes at the level of the individual person.
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Costache O, Edelsbrunner PA, Becker ES, Sticca F, Staub FC, Götz T. [Growth trajectories of intrinsic value beliefs in mathematics and French: Relations with career orientations]. ZEITSCHRIFT FUR ERZIEHUNGSWISSENSCHAFT : ZFE 2022; 25:269-291. [PMID: 35875181 PMCID: PMC9296413 DOI: 10.1007/s11618-022-01095-y] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/04/2021] [Revised: 03/05/2022] [Accepted: 03/17/2022] [Indexed: 06/15/2023]
Abstract
This longitudinal study investigated different trajectories in the development of intrinsic value beliefs in the subjects Mathematics and French in Grades 9 to 11 and their correlations with career aspirations. Using data from 850 students from German-Swiss high schools (54% female, age T1: 15.6 years), five distinct growth classes were identified in a bivariate growth model. Two of these classes showed clear differentiation between intrinsic value beliefs regarding the two subjects and stable growth in the preferred subject. The other three classes were characterized by mean differences (high, medium, low intrinsic value beliefs) and moderate decline in both subjects. The five growth classes were associated with different career orientations at the end of the 11th grade, with students exhibiting particularly high career orientations in one subject when intrinsic value regarding the other subject was low. Gender differences in career orientations could be fully explained by gender membership in the five growth classes.
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Affiliation(s)
- Oana Costache
- Institut für Erziehungswissenschaft, Universität Zürich, Kantonsschulstrasse 3, 8001 Zürich, Schweiz
| | - Peter A. Edelsbrunner
- Institut für Verhaltenswissenschaften, ETH Zürich, Clausiusstrasse 59, 8092 Zürich, Schweiz
| | - Eva S. Becker
- Institut für Erziehungswissenschaft, Universität Zürich, Kantonsschulstrasse 3, 8001 Zürich, Schweiz
| | - Fabio Sticca
- Assoziiertes Institut der Universität Zürich, Marie Meierhofer Institut für das Kind, Pfingstweidstrasse 16, 8005 Schweiz Zürich
| | - Fritz C. Staub
- Institut für Erziehungswissenschaft, Universität Zürich, Kantonsschulstrasse 3, 8001 Zürich, Schweiz
| | - Thomas Götz
- Institut für Psychologie der Entwicklung und Bildung, Universität Wien, Universitätsstraße 7, 1010 Wien, Österreich
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