Estimating psychological networks and their accuracy: A tutorial paper
The usage of psychological networks that conceptualize behavior as a complex interplay of psychological and other components has gained increasing popularity in various research fields. While prior publications have tackled the topics of estimating and interpreting such networks, little work has bee...
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| Vydáno v: | Behavior research methods Ročník 50; číslo 1; s. 195 - 212 |
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| Hlavní autoři: | , , |
| Médium: | Journal Article |
| Jazyk: | angličtina |
| Vydáno: |
New York
Springer US
01.02.2018
Springer Nature B.V |
| Témata: | |
| ISSN: | 1554-3528, 1554-351X, 1554-3528 |
| On-line přístup: | Získat plný text |
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| Shrnutí: | The usage of
psychological networks
that conceptualize behavior as a complex interplay of psychological and other components has gained increasing popularity in various research fields. While prior publications have tackled the topics of estimating and interpreting such networks, little work has been conducted to check how
accurate
(i.e., prone to sampling variation) networks are estimated, and how
stable
(i.e., interpretation remains similar with less observations) inferences from the network structure (such as centrality indices) are. In this tutorial paper, we aim to introduce the reader to this field and tackle the problem of accuracy under sampling variation. We first introduce the current state-of-the-art of network estimation. Second, we provide a rationale why researchers should investigate the accuracy of psychological networks. Third, we describe how bootstrap routines can be used to (A) assess the accuracy of estimated network connections, (B) investigate the stability of centrality indices, and (C) test whether network connections and centrality estimates for different variables differ from each other. We introduce two novel statistical methods: for (B) the
correlation stability coefficient
, and for (C) the
bootstrapped difference test
for edge-weights and centrality indices. We conducted and present simulation studies to assess the performance of both methods. Finally, we developed the free R-package
bootnet
that allows for estimating psychological networks in a generalized framework in addition to the proposed bootstrap methods. We showcase
bootnet
in a tutorial, accompanied by R syntax, in which we analyze a dataset of 359 women with posttraumatic stress disorder available online. |
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| Bibliografie: | ObjectType-Article-1 SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1 ObjectType-Feature-2 content type line 14 content type line 23 |
| ISSN: | 1554-3528 1554-351X 1554-3528 |
| DOI: | 10.3758/s13428-017-0862-1 |