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Critiques of network analysis of multivariate data in psychological science

Nature Reviews Methods Primers volume 2, Article number: 90 (2022) Cite this article

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A recent Primer on the network analysis of multivariate data in psychological science (Borsboom, D. et al. Network analysis of multivariate data in psychological science. Nat. Rev. Methods Primers 1, 58 (2021)) provided an overview of psychometric network analysis, including graphical models, estimation methods for those models and descriptive tools1. These techniques are used for obtaining and examining the statistical associations among psychological variables as a network. However, the Primer omitted or glossed over core critiques of these models and methods, making them appear artificially robust and widely accepted. We highlight four categories of critique: selecting network models when better-suited multivariate methods already exist, adopting study designs that are mismatched to research questions, estimating networks using methods that yield unreliable estimates and interpreting network metrics that are invalid when applied to networks of statistical associations. We point readers to selected critiques that were available when the original Primer was written, and also provide a complete annotated bibliography2 of critiques of psychometric network analysis.

The goal of psychometric network analysis is to understand the relationships among measured psychological variables, including symptoms, beliefs or traits. However, many multivariate methods already exist for this purpose. For example, latent variable models such as factor analysis and structural equation methods already allow researchers to examine the relationships among a set of measured variables, and offer robust ways to evaluate model fit. A series of debates in both clinical and personality psychology have challenged whether psychometric network analysis is the most appropriate method for research questions focused on understanding patterns of variable associations. Some have observed that network models may be identical in many cases to latent variable models; however, because of their structure and number of parameters, network models may overfit and be lacking in parsimony3. Similarly, others note that network models do not provide value beyond a graphical depiction of the correlations or partial correlations among the variables4. Following these observations, we recommend that researchers conduct psychometric network analysis only when it is better matched to their research questions than other existing multivariate analytic methods.

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References

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, USA

    Zachary P. Neal & Jennifer Watling Neal

  2. School of Psychological Sciences, Macquarie University, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia

    Miriam K. Forbes

  3. College of Business, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL, USA

    Michael J. Brusco

  4. Psychology Department, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, USA

    Robert Krueger

  5. Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA, USA

    Kristian Markon

  6. Department of Psychological Sciences, University of Missouri, Columbia, MO, USA

    Douglas Steinley

  7. Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN, USA

    Stanley Wasserman

  8. Department of Psychology, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, USA

    Aiden G. C. Wright

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  1. Zachary P. Neal
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Contributions

Z.P.N. conceptualized the paper. Z.P.N., M.K.F. and J.W.N. drafted the proposal and first draft. All authors drafted and reviewed the final paper.

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Correspondence to Zachary P. Neal.

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Nature Reviews Methods Primers thanks Antonio Serpa-Barrientos for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Neal, Z.P., Forbes, M.K., Neal, J.W. et al. Critiques of network analysis of multivariate data in psychological science. Nat Rev Methods Primers 2, 90 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s43586-022-00177-9

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