Reliability and the Hidden Translational Gaps in Multidisciplinary Clinical Psychological Science

Clinical psychological science combines multiple measurement traditions, which can create hidden translational gaps in which mismatches in methods and constructs go unnoticed. Here, I discuss reliability as an example of a hidden gap between disciplines, drawing from my own career adapting experimental cognitive tasks for clinical research and the personal challenges of confronting methods limitations. Now, as the field moves toward within-person (e.g., idiographic) approaches, researchers face potential new gaps as they adapt measures from experimental and individual differences research. Bridging these gaps will require even broader multidisciplinary collaboration and awareness of the boundaries between methods.