Importance of operational definition in psychology

Operational Definition Psychology - Definition, Examples, and How to Write One

Every good psychology study contains an operational definition for the variables in the research. An operational definition allows the researchers to describe in a specific way what they mean when they use a certain term. Generally, operational definitions are concrete and measurable. Defining variables in this way allows other people to see if the research has validity. Validity here refers to if the researchers are actually measuring what they intended to measure.

Definition: An operational definition is the statement of procedures the researcher is going to use in order to measure a specific variable.

We need operational definitions in psychology so that we know exactly what researchers are talking about when they refer to something. There might be different definitions of words depending on the context in which the word is used. Think about how words mean something different to people from different cultures. To avoid any confusion about definitions, in research we explain clearly what we mean when we use a certain term.

Operational Definition Examples

Example One:

A researcher wants to measure if age is related to addiction. Perhaps their hypothesis is: the incidence of addiction will increase with age. Here we have two variables, age and addiction. In order to make the research as clear as possible, the researcher must define how they will measure these variables. Essentially, how do we measure someone’s age and how to we measure addiction?

Variable One: Age might seem straightforward. You might be wondering why we need to define age if we all know what age is. However, one researcher might decide to measure age in months in order to get someone’s precise age, while another researcher might just choose to measure age in years. In order to understand the results of the study, we will need to know how this researcher operationalized age. For the sake of this example lets say that age is defined as how old someone is in years.

Variable Two: The variable of addiction is slightly more complicated than age. In order to operationalize it the researcher has to decide exactly how they want to measure addiction. They might narrow down their definition and say that addiction is defined as going through withdrawal when the person stops using a substance. Or the researchers might decide that the definition of addiction is: if someone currently meets the DSM-5 diagnostic criteria for any substance use disorder. For the sake of this example, let’s say that the researcher chose the latter.

Final Definition: In this research study age is defined as participant’s age measured in years and the incidence of addiction is defined as whether or not the participant currently meets the DSM-5 diagnostic criteria for any substance use disorder.

Example Two

A researcher wants to measure if there is a correlation between hot weather and violent crime. Perhaps their guiding hypothesis is: as temperature increases so will violent crime. Here we have two variables, weather and violent crime. In order to make this research precise the researcher will have to operationalize the variables.

Variable One: The first variable is weather. The researcher needs to decide how to define weather. Researchers might chose to define weather as outside temperature in degrees Fahrenheit. But we need to get a little more specific because there is not one stable temperature throughout the day. So the researchers might say that weather is defined as the high recorded temperature for the day measured in degrees Fahrenheit.

Variable Two: The second variable is violent crime. Again, the researcher needs to define how violent crime is measured. Let’s say that for this study it they use the FBI’s definition of violent crime. This definition describes violent crime as “murder and nonnegligent manslaughter, forcible rape, robbery, and aggravated assault”.

However, how do we actually know how many violent crimes were committed on a given day? Researchers might include in the definition something like: the number of people arrested that day for violent crimes as recorded by the local police.

Final Definition: For this study temperature was defined as high recorded temperature for the day measured in degrees Fahrenheit. Violent crime was defined as the number of people arrested in a given day for murder, forcible rape, robbery, and aggravated assault as recorded by the local police.

How to Write an Operational Definition

For the last example take the opportunity to see if you can write a clear operational definition for yourself. Imagine that you are creating a research study and you want to see if group therapy is helpful for treating social anxiety.

Variable One: How are you going to define group therapy? here are some things you might want to consider when creating your operational definition:

What type of group therapy?
Who is leading the therapy group?
How long do people participate in the therapy group for?
How can you “measure” group therapy?

There is no one way to write the operational definition for this variable. You could say something like group therapy was defined as a weekly cognitive behavioral therapy group led by a licensed MFT held over the course of ten weeks. Remember there are many ways to write an operational definition. You know you have written an effective one if another researcher could pick it up and create a very similar variable based on your definition.

Variable Two: The second variable you need to define is “effective treatment social anxiety”. Again, see if you can come up with an operational definition of this variable. This is a little tricky because you will need to be specific about what an effective treatment is as well as what social anxiety is. Here are some things to consider when writing your definition:

How do you know a treatment is effective?
How do you measure the effectiveness of treatment?
Who provides a reliable definition of social anxiety?
How can you measure social anxiety?

Again, there is no one right way to write this operational definition. If someone else could recreate the study using your definition it is probably an effective one. Here as one example of how you could operationalize the variable: social anxiety was defined as meeting the DSM-5 criteria for social anxiety and the effectiveness of treatment was defined as the reduction of social anxiety symptoms over the 10 week treatment period.

Final Definition: Take your definition for variable one and your definition for variable two and write them in a clear and succinct way. It is alright for your definition to be more than one sentence.

Why We Need Operational Definitions

There are a number of reasons why researchers need to have operational definitions including:

Validity
Replicability
Generalizability
Dissemination

The first reason was mentioned earlier in the post when reading research others should be able to assess the validity of the research. That is, did the researchers measure what they intended to measure? If we don’t know how researchers measured something it is very hard to know if the study had validity.

The next reason it is important to have an operational definition is for the sake of replicability. Research should be designed so that if someone else wanted to replicate it they could. By replicating research and getting the same findings we validate the findings. It is impossible to recreate a study if we are unsure about how they defined or measured the variables.

Another reason we need operational definitions is so that we can understand how generalizable the findings are. In research, we want to know that the findings are true not just for a small sample of people. We hope to get findings that generalize to the whole population. If we do not have operational definitions it is hard to generalize the findings because we don’t know who they generalize to.

Finally, operational definitions are important for the dissemination of information. When a study is done it is generally published in a peer-reviewed journal and might be read by other psychologists, students, or journalists. Researchers want people to read their research and apply their findings. If the person reading the article doesn’t know what they are talking about because a variable is not clear it will be hard to them to actually apply this new knowledge.

Operational Definitions | IB Psychology

Writing good operational definitions is about writing, re-writing, re-writing and then repeating this process.

Updated May 2020

Operational definitions became important in Psychology when psychologists wanted to establish that psychological experimentation is truly scientific in nature. In this blog post, we’ll look at exactly what is an operational definition is and how to do it. This is a common error in IB Psychology IAs. Hopefully after reading this post, students will be able to write excellent operational definitions of their independent and dependent variables.

What is an operational definition?

We all know that a “definition” is the given meaning of something. The “operational” part means giving the meaning of something as it’s being used in a particular study. So in psychology, an operational definition means defining the variable as it exists in the present study. You need to state clearly and very specifically, how you are manipulating your IV, and how you are measuring your DV?

Read more:

What none of us realized about the new IAs
Key Studies for the IA
How to stop your IAs from losing marks

IVs

Here are some common independent variables that psychology students use in their experiments:

Depth of processing (e.g. in a levels of processing study like Craik and Lockhart).
Schema activation (e.g. Bransford and Johnson or Loftus and Palmer)
Anchors (high and low) (e. g. in a Kahneman and Tversky study).

These terms are quite vague. What does “schema activation” mean? In order to provide an operational definition of this variable, you have to clearly describe the two conditions of your experiment (see below for examples).

DVs

Similarly, if we look at some examples of dependent variables we’ll see they’re just as vague:

Memory
Working memory

Judgement
Decision-making
Perception

These are the variables being measured in experiments. In order to write an operational definition you must write exactly how you plan on measuring these variables.

IB Psych IA Tips

The rubric states that you must operationally define your IV and DV in your research and/or null hypothesis. I recommend doing it in your research hypothesis (see below for examples).
Write your operational definitions of your IV and DV separately before you write your hypotheses. Include them separately (and well labelled) in your IA Introduction as well as in your research hypothesis. You might get credit for operational definitions of your IV and DV even if they’re not in your hypotheses.
Using brackets is a good way to include operational definitions in your hypotheses (see below).
You will not get it right the first time. Write, edit, re-write, edit, re-write and keep going until you think it’s perfect.

Example #1: Drug Trial

Imagine I was conducting an experiment that was trialling the effectiveness of a drug treatment on PTSD symptoms. The drug therapy is my independent variable and PTSD symptoms is my dependent variable. In order to write an operational definition of the IV I must describe the two conditions of my experiment. It might look something like this:

Drug treatment: One group will take 20mg of Paroxetine (as a pill) every morning for 7 days, whereas the control group will take an identical placebo pill every morning for 7 days.

The above operational definition of “drug therapy” is stated in a way so you know exactly how it is being manipulated., i.e. you know the two different conditions of the experiment. If you want to know if you’ve written a good operational definition, ask someone to read it and get them to tell you the difference between the two groups in your study. If they can’t do this, the chances are your operational definition is too vague. Remember, we want our studies to be easily replicated, so others have to be able to follow our methodology.

“PTSD symptoms” is very vague. It doesn’t tell me how they’re being measured. So in order to operationally define this DV I need to describe exactly how they’ll be measured. It could look like this:

Symptoms of PTSD are measured using scores from the Clinically Administered PTSD Scale (CAPS).

My research hypothesis with operational definitions might look something like this: Taking 20mg of paroxetine (as a pill) every morning for 7 days has a greater reduction of PTSD symptoms (measured the CAPS scale) than taking a placebo pill every morning for 7 days.

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Example #2: Media and Body Image

Most student IAs measure some kind of memory test or other test designed by students (unlike CAPs or BSQ). If this is the case, you need to carefully yet CONCISELY describe your test.

I wrote an example IA I wrote on how media can affect body image (I didn’t really do this experiment, but I wrote it as an example that students can’t copy). In my study, I wanted to see if watching a video that shows beautiful people can affect body image. My IV is “type of media watched. ” This is quite vague so I need to clearly describe how I’m manipulating this, which as you’ll see ends in me describing my two conditions of the experiment:

Type of media:” Watching a video portraying the thin ideal in a Baywatch film trailer compared with watching media with “normal” body types in the Grownups film trailer.

You define my IV specifically in my study I have to describe the different conditions very specifically.

My DV is “body dissatisfaction.” But this could be measured a number of different ways. To have an operational definition I need to explain exactly how I am measuring it in my particular study. In my made-up study, the operational definition of body dissatisfaction was:

Scores on the Body Shape Questionnaire (BSQ-34).

My research hypothesis with operational definitions might look something like this: Watching a video portraying the thin ideal (in a Baywatch film trailer) increases body dissatisfaction more than watching a clip with “normal” body types (in the Grownups film trailer) as measured using the Body Shape Questionnaire (BSQ-34).

Travis Dixon

Travis Dixon is an IB Psychology teacher, author, workshop leader, examiner and IA moderator.

Operational Definition of Concepts - Psychologos

Operational Definition of Concepts - definition of a concept through clear procedures that tell us "it is" or "it is not". As a rule, an operational concept has two features: a clear definition with a list of the main features and the ability to check their presence or absence with the help of understandable, specific actions.

"Operational - a definition that gives the concept a transferable meaning, indicating how the concept is measured and applied in specific circumstances." - Deming, 1986

Unfortunately, in practical psychology, many concepts in principle do not have an established meaning, and each psychologist seems to put essentially different content into one and the same word.

For example, the term "introvert" has at least three different and commonly used meanings. A similar situation with the word "frustration" (frustration). This word is used in at least three different meanings: a) to denote a blocking effect, which prevents a motivated organism from reaching a goal or continuing a goal-directed behavior; b) to refer to the behavior that occurs when a goal-oriented organism encounters such a blocking influence; c) to designate a hypothetical internal process that supposedly explains the observed behavioral responses to a blocking effect. nine0003

Talk about the need for an operational definition of concepts comes from physics. The researchers agreed that for better mutual understanding it is necessary to impose more stringent requirements for the definition of concepts. Namely, concepts must be defined strictly in terms of the operations that are used to measure what they stand for. “A concept is a synonym for a corresponding set of operations” (Bridgeman).

According to Bridgman, nothing is as simple and unambiguous as it seems at first sight. Over time, he allowed himself several tactical digressions from his originally monolithic position, such as recognizing the temporary permissibility of "paper" (not yet implemented in hardware) operations and the usefulness of abstract concepts. nine0003

The idea that the meaning of all concepts should be limited only to the necessary operations underlying them immediately attracted psychologists. S.S. Stevens quite early began to promote operationalism in psychology, but the wave of enthusiasm for operationalism was brought down by the fact that operationalism was not seriously applicable to psychology, and the gradual movement towards more precise definitions did not suit anyone at that time. The principle of "all or nothing" killed the enthusiasm that arose among psychologists. nine0003

No discussions about operationalism, no matter how many times they are renewed, can neglect the fact that psychologists are too often unable to adequately communicate with each other simply by virtue of the loose definition and ambiguous use of basic terms. Some fundamentally important provisions should be emphasized. First, O. o. concepts are not subject to the law "all or nothing"; rather, one can speak of a continuum of operational clarity of definitions, i.e., of the extent to which it was possible to eliminate uncertainty and redundant values in them. or experiment. research, it must be objective; the fact of coming to terms with ambiguity must be seen in many situations as a necessity, but hopefully not as a permanent factor. It is also important that the scientists in communication openly acknowledge the current state of affairs, rather than ignoring it and simply skimming the surface. Thirdly, one should not intrude into questions concerning the essence of already defined concepts and confuse them with the predominantly methodological criteria associated with od. Fourth, it is to be hoped that the recognition of the importance of these considerations will improve the situation as regards the clarity of definitions and, in the end, will contribute to the development of the theoretical foundations of psychol. science. Such a positive approach to the problem of definitions should also help psychologists get rid of the semantic quagmire in which many of the key concepts are still stuck. nine0003

Operational definitions

Term operationalism for the first time appeared in the 1920s. XX in. in the work of Harvard physicist Percy Bridgman "The Logic of Modern Physics" ( The Logic of Modern Physics , 1927). Bridgeman pointed out that scientific terminology should be completely objective and accurate, and All concepts must be defined in in terms of the operations to be performed. Such kind of definitions was called operational definitions. Length some object, for example, operationally defined with set of predefined procedures. According to Bridgman, "the concept of length then defined when installed operations that measure length, which means that the concept of length includes no more and no less than a set of operations" (Bridgeman, 1927, b. five).

Given the trend experimental psychologists borrow approaches from more "adult" sciences, it is not surprising that operationism was accepted by the psychological community, as soon as it appeared. But strict operationism did not last long in psychology, partly because equalization of concept and set of operations imposes too strong restrictions to the concept. Problem for psychologists operationalism was reduced to the question of whether how to implement it in practice dealing with such complex psychological phenomena such as aggression, creativity, depression, etc. It is not so difficult for physicists come to an agreement by accepting a set procedures for measuring line length, but as can be represented in the form of operations, for example, the concept of "aggression"? Even social psychologists agree that "aggression is a behavior that expresses intent to harm" (Aronson, nineteen99a), what activities should be measured according to this understanding? AT literature on aggression, this term has been operationally defined as a type behavior ranging from exposure to electric shock, signals motorist and to the difficulty of performing desired task by pressing a button. Is it possible to use here one type of measurement?

In spite of problematic strict applications operational definitions, theory operationalism played a role in psychology and taught researchers clearly define the terms used (Hilgard, nineteen87). This is especially important if you take into note that most psychological research uses concepts for many of which can be cited definitions. For example, imagine research study effect of hunger on behavior in the maze. "Hunger" is a term that can deal with different phenomena. Its not easy determine for the rat: when possible say the rat is hungry? Solve problem can be solved with the help of operational definitions: to express a concept in terms procedures (do not feed the rat during 24 hours -

owls It is reasonable to assume that such actions will cause hunger) or in terms of behavior (create a situation in which the rat forced to work hard to get food, it is reasonable to assume that a well-fed rat will not perform the task).

Accuracy operational definitions has one An important consequence is that they provide the possibility of reproducing experiments. How did you learn from the chapters 1 and 2, the possibility of repetition is an important feature of any scientific research. Restrictions imposed by necessity exact definition of terms, not too depressing for psychologists-researchers, since the requirement for accuracy increases confidence in reliability behavior theories. Psychologists also use the concept converging operations, meaning a number of studies using somewhat excellent operating definitions and experimental procedures that nevertheless come to the same conclusions in the end our understanding of the mechanisms of behavior is growing. So if great experiments to study the effect of hunger on learning the passage of the maze lead to one and the same conclusion (even if we used different operational definitions hunger and learning), it will be high certainty that the law has been found relationship between hunger and learning success.

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