I agree that longitudinal mixed models are better for causal inference. Wish I had the same optimism as you about SEM methods!
Yeah, there's a lot of bad work done in social psych, but the field is waking up to that which makes it an exciting time - lots of work is being overturned and we have an opportunity to fix things from the ground up. I hope we can do work that is actually useful to more people than just marketing agencies lol
The way I see it those investing in methods enough to be using SEM acknowledge the limitations and with enough education (which is really pumping even 3 years ago when i was in a lab) ways of applying it can definitely be shifted imo. When I was taught it they definitely said use a metric fuck ton of salt lmao.
I think shifting to a Hierarchical linear approach will will also be necessary as many of these things are nested. tbh i haven’t had enough advanced knowledge to know how the methods have been applied to together other than intra individual approaches in latent growth curves (i worked with them independently and probably a rather surface level tbh) you are much more knowledgeable though than me so Im sure your skepticism and lack of optimism is very warranted
I agree that longitudinal mixed models are better for causal inference. Wish I had the same optimism as you about SEM methods!
Yeah, there's a lot of bad work done in social psych, but the field is waking up to that which makes it an exciting time - lots of work is being overturned and we have an opportunity to fix things from the ground up. I hope we can do work that is actually useful to more people than just marketing agencies lol
The way I see it those investing in methods enough to be using SEM acknowledge the limitations and with enough education (which is really pumping even 3 years ago when i was in a lab) ways of applying it can definitely be shifted imo. When I was taught it they definitely said use a metric fuck ton of salt lmao.
I think shifting to a Hierarchical linear approach will will also be necessary as many of these things are nested. tbh i haven’t had enough advanced knowledge to know how the methods have been applied to together other than intra individual approaches in latent growth curves (i worked with them independently and probably a rather surface level tbh) you are much more knowledgeable though than me so Im sure your skepticism and lack of optimism is very warranted