Questionable Research Practices Distort Impressions of Reality: Comment on Questioning Psychological Constructs

I congratulate De Boeck, Pek, Walton, Wegener, Turner, Andersen, Beauchaine, Lecavalier, Myung, and Petty (this issue) on presenting a thought-provoking piece on the nature of constructs and their role in psychological research. Their paper is a reminder of our sometimes casual use of terms that, upon closer inspection, are at best ambiguous and at worst damaging to scientific progress. De Boeck et al. (this issue) paper encourages us to confront this ambiguity, and they give their take on how we should view constructs. More specifically, they view constructs as hierarchical composites that are variable in nature. Furthermore, they suggest that constructs defined in this manner better reflect reality. They argue that this complexity of reality can explain the "dissatisfactions with the vagueness of constructs, variable results, lack of progress in accumulating knowledge, and … failures to replicate."