Exploring and Validating Construct Interpretations of Psychological Measurements

In psychological research, as in other scientific disciplines, developing accurate measures of the phenomena under study is fundamental to maintaining the integrity of scientific conclusions. Psychological researchers are often criticized for a lack of rigor when it comes to measurement. On closer inspection, however, these problems may be due not only to the lack of implementation of common standards, but also to fundamental methodological flaws in those standards. Measurement methodology within psychological research has been plagued by many challenges, including conceptual complexity and imprecise terminology, lack of consensus, misplaced emphasis on aspects of psychometric purity, a prevailing inclination toward confirmationism over falsificationism, a lack of distinction between exploratory and confirmatory research, and the absence of a framework fully dedicated to exploratory work, depriving researchers of essential tools. This dissertation aims to address some of these challenges and further presents studies that examine construct interpretation of psychological measurements in three research areas: affect dynamics (Wendt et al., 2020), psychopathology (Wendt et al., 2023), and mindreading (Wendt et al., 2024).