ABSTRACT
The basic requirement of all research in psychology is that you are able to measure the variables of interest to you. Some psychological variables may be measured in many different ways, perhaps none of which are entirely satisfactory. There may be no perfect way of assessing them. Their measurement is approximate. Nevertheless even these imperfect measurements allow important research to be carried out. Take the variable ‘relationship satisfaction’ which is difficult to specify accurately. Some researchers may choose to measure this by asking directly ‘How satisfied are you with your partner?’ while others might decide that the percentage of time partners spend in very close physical proximity might be a better measure. Measures such as these may agree poorly—they are merely different facets of something difficult to define. There is a fundamental difference between a psychological concept such as ‘relationship satisfaction’ and the means we employ to measure it. The problem is that psychological concepts are often hard to define precisely and consequently it is difficult to know precisely what we are measuring and how to measure it.
