Book contents
- The Cambridge Handbook of Research Methods in Clinical Psychology
- The Cambridge Handbook of Research Methods in Clinical Psychology
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Contributors
- Acknowledgments
- Part I Clinical Psychological Science
- 1 Trends in the Evolving Discipline of Clinical Psychology
- 2 Defining and Redefining Phenotypes
- 3 Building Models of Psychopathology Spanning Multiple Modalities of Measurement
- Part II Observational Approaches
- Part III Experimental and Biological Approaches
- Part IV Developmental Psychopathology and Longitudinal Methods
- Part V Intervention Approaches
- Part VI Intensive Longitudinal Designs
- Part VII General Analytic Considerations
- Index
- References
2 - Defining and Redefining Phenotypes
Operational Definitions as Open Concepts
from Part I - Clinical Psychological Science
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 March 2020
Book contents
- The Cambridge Handbook of Research Methods in Clinical Psychology
- The Cambridge Handbook of Research Methods in Clinical Psychology
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Contributors
- Acknowledgments
- Part I Clinical Psychological Science
- 1 Trends in the Evolving Discipline of Clinical Psychology
- 2 Defining and Redefining Phenotypes
- 3 Building Models of Psychopathology Spanning Multiple Modalities of Measurement
- Part II Observational Approaches
- Part III Experimental and Biological Approaches
- Part IV Developmental Psychopathology and Longitudinal Methods
- Part V Intervention Approaches
- Part VI Intensive Longitudinal Designs
- Part VII General Analytic Considerations
- Index
- References
Summary
Focusing primarily on descriptive phenotypes for psychopathology, this chapter reviews the history and philosophy of operational definitions, emphasizing their provisional nature under the auspices of open concepts. It also reintroduces an important feature of operational definitions as originally proposed, namely the role of conventions in both defining and redefining the meaning of empirical concepts. It tentatively suggests that a shift toward a scientific realist conception of construct validation had the perhaps unintended consequence of obscuring the intrinsically provisional nature of concepts for psychological phenotypes. It explicates open concepts with the examples of schizophrenia, the five factor model of personality, and endophenotypes.
Keywords
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- Information
- Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2020
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