Extrinsic Convergent Validity Evidence to Prevent Jingle and Jangle Fallacies

Abstract

In psychology, there have been vast creative efforts in proposing new constructs and developing measures to assess them. Less effort has been spent in investigating construct overlap to prevent bifurcated literatures, wasted research efforts, and jingle-jangle fallacies. For example, researchers could gather validity evidence to evaluate if two measures with the same label actually assess different constructs (jingle fallacy), or if two measures with different labels actually assess the same construct (jangle fallacy). In this paper, we discuss the concept of extrinsic convergent validity, a source of validity evidence demonstrated when two measures of the same construct, or two measures of seemingly different constructs, have comparable correlations with external criteria. We introduce a formal approach to obtain extrinsic convergent validity evidence using tests of dependent correlations and evaluate the tests using Monte Carlo simulations. Also, we illustrate the methods by examining the overlap between the self-control and grit constructs, and the overlap among seven seemingly different measures of the connectedness to nature construct. Finally, we discuss how extrinsic convergent validity evidence supplements other sources of evidence that support validity arguments of construct overlap.