Contemporary quantitative statistical methods for family psychology

Abstract

This chapter discusses some contemporary statistical methods and their application in the field of family psychology. It focuses on longitudinal data analyses, because the author believes that family psychology benefits from longitudinal designs. The chapter outlines some key issues in operationalizing constructs - that is, measurement models, including latent factor modeling and measurement invariance. It turns to basic and advanced statistical methods for describing and explaining the associations between constructs. Basic statistical methods include moderation and mediation analyses, whereas advanced statistical methods include developmental cascade models, growth curve models, latent difference score models, and growth mixture models. The discussion of each method begins with a description of the statistical techniques, followed by a relevant study in the field of family psychology, used as an illustration of that particular method. The chapter concludes with a general discussion of statistical methods and future directions for their use in the field of family psychology.