Question

Define a construct and explain why psychologists often need to use an operational definition to measure constructs.

Answer 1

Ans :

Constructs are the variables that are studied by the psychologists . Some are simple and straightforward such as age , sex , height etc , which can be easily seen or observed , the others such as intelligence , emotional states and abilities that cannot be easily observed just on looking are called as psychological constructs.

The operational definition is used by the psychologists to measure these constructs as precisely as possible.

These measures can be of three major types :

Self report measure

Behavioral measure

psychological measures

There can be multiple operation definitions for a single construct or variable , this is then called as converging operations.