Back to Basics: The Importance of Conceptual Clarification in Psychological Science

Abstract

Although the lack of conceptual clarity has been observed to be a widespread and fundamental problem in psychology, conceptual clarification plays a mostly marginal role in psychological research. In this article, we argue that better conceptualization of psychological phenomena is needed to move psychology forward as a science. We first show how conceptual unclarity seeps through all aspects of psychological research, from everyday concepts to statistical measures. We then turn to recommendations on how to improve conceptual clarity in psychology, emphasizing the importance of seeing research as an iterative process in which it is necessary to revisit the phenomena that are the foundations of theories and models, as well as how they are conceptualized and measured.

Convergence of Age Differences in Risk Preference, Impulsivity, and Self-Control: A Multiverse Analysis

“…However, the level of divergence, especially as a function of assessment method, calls for much more principled development and selection of the theories and the methods we use to sca↵old research on aging. Moving forward, we also hope our work can heed calls for both conceptual clarification and methodological development in the psychological sciences [63,64].…”

“…Psychological science is being challenged by calls for conceptual clarification and the development of theories [63,64]. In the field of psychological research on aging, several theoretical accounts of life span changes in risk preference, impulsivity, and low self-control have been proposed.…”

“…The current problem is thus not a lack of theory, but most theories' vagueness on the exact mechanisms sub-serving age e↵ects, and how individuals' sensitivity to rewards, losses and probabilities may be recruited and captured di↵erently by di↵erent assessment methods of risk preference and related constructs. However, a better understanding of how di↵erent constructs relate and to what extent they exhibit similar trajectories across the life span may not only tell us more about the convergence of the underlying mechanisms, but importantly may also allow us to make inferences about the utility of conducting research as if risk preference, impulsivity, and selfcontrol are overlapping or clearly distinguishable constructs in psychological science [63].…”

Strategic ambiguity in the social sciences

“…By making empirical evidence seem to support a claim more strongly than is warranted, strategic ambiguity distorts the scientific record. To prevent this, scientists should be transparent about their use of ambiguity, a form of intellectual humility that benefits the scientific enterprise (Bringmann et al, 2022;Frankenhuis et al, 2021;Hoekstra & Vazire, 2021).…”

Knowing What We're Talking About: Facilitating Decentralized, Unequivocal Publication of and Reference to Psychological Construct Definitions and Instructions

“…Vazire et al (2022) review a number of studies that illustrate problems with conceptual clarity and validity. Bringmann et al (2022) describe how a lack of conceptual clarity has held back scientific progress in psychology and call for dedicated efforts to remedy this. They emphasize that conceptual clarification enables epistemic iteration: iteratively improving theoretical construct definitions and measurement instruments (Chang, 2007).…”