Discuss The Importance Of Reliability and Validity In Psychology

SOCI 331 The Importance Of Reliability and Validity In Psychology

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Forum Question:

The Forum includes several steps:

Identify a “different” research problem that would
be best studied using a non-probability sample.

Discuss why this research problem is best studied using a
non-probability sample, and what type of non-probability sample you would
likely use.

Find a peer-reviewed journal article (no more than five
years old) related to that research problem.

Discuss the sampling strategy/process used in the
article. What details are included, and
what information regarding the sampling was ignored?

Instructions for all Forums:

Each week, learners will post one initial post per
week. This post must demonstrate
comprehension of the course materials, the ability to apply that knowledge in
the real world. Learners will engage
with the instructor and peers throughout the learning week. To motivate engaged discussion, posts are
expected to be on time with regular interaction throughout the week. All posts should demonstrate college level
writing skills. To promote vibrant discussion as we would in a face to face
classroom, formatted citations and references are not required. Quotes should not be used at all, or used
sparingly. If you quote a source
quotation marks should be used and an APA formatted citation and reference
provided.

Reliability and validity are both very important in psychology. They help to ensure that an experiment is credible and can be used in Psychology. Reliability is important to make sure something can be replicated and that the findings will be the same if the experiment was done again. Validity ensures that an experiment can be generalised (external validity) and that it measures what it sets out to measure. To explain the importance of both reliability and validity I am going to write about the affect they have on the classification and diagnosis of depression.

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SOCI 331 The Importance Of Reliability and Validity In Psychology
SOCI 331 The Importance Of Reliability and Validity In Psychology

One of the main problems with diagnosing depression in individuals is inter-rater reliability. This is a specific type of reliability which, in this case, looks at whether two people would come to the same conclusion about an individual. A person’s symptoms are easily open to interpretation by a professional which can be a problem when diagnosing depression, because it may lead to serious misdiagnosis of an individual. Not only can the conclusions of a professional provide a problem, but the information given by a patient can also pose a risk with reliability. A person might not necessarily say the same thing to two different professionals about their symptoms and this can again lead to misdiagnosis. Information from patients is often unreliable due to problems with embarrassment, wanting to be likeable and so on.

A common problem related to this is the issue of culture. The diagnosis of depression has problems with validity because it can’t necessarily be generalised to every culture. Studies have found that some cultures rely on showing lots of emotion like grieving, whereas others see it as a bad thing. A culture where emotion is frowned upon may see an individual from a more emotional culture as depressed when they are not. It is hard to classify the symptoms of a mood disorder in a world of so many different cultures and beliefs. Sub-cultures like gender provide the same problem. Research has shown that men and women react to situations differently and that women tend to show more emotion. This could mean that a man who is depressed may be misdiagnosed simply because he doesn’t really show how he feels.