Life history theory is a fruitful source of testable hypotheses about human individual differences. However, this field of study is beset by unresolved debates about basic concepts and methods. One of these controversies concerns the usefulness of instruments that purport to tap a unidimensional life history (LH) factor based on a set of self-reported personality, social, and attitudinal variables. Here, we take a novel approach to analyzing the psychometrics of two variants of the Arizona Life History Battery: the Mini-K and the K-SF-42. Psychological network analysis generates models in which psychological variables (thoughts, feelings, or behaviors) comprise the nodes of a network, while partial correlation coefficients between these variables comprise the edges of the network. Centrality indices (strength, closeness, and betweenness) operationalize each node’s importance based on the pattern of the connections in which that node plays a role. Because childhood environments are hypothesized to influence adult LH, we tested the hypothesis that among the Mini-K items, and the K-SF-42 scales, those that tap relationships with parents are central to the networks (pairwise Markov random fields) constructed from these instruments. In an MTurk sample and an undergraduate sample that completed the Mini-K, and an MTurk sample that completed the K-SF-42, this hypothesis was falsified. Indeed, the “relationships with parents” items were among the most peripheral in all three networks. We propose that network analysis, as an alternative to latent variable modeling, offers considerable potential to test hypotheses about the input-output mappings of specific evolved psychological mechanisms.

中文翻译：

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Mini-K和K-SF-42的结构：一种心理网络方法。

生命史理论是关于人类个体差异的可检验假设的丰硕成果。然而，这个研究领域被关于基本概念和方法的尚未解决的争论所困扰。这些争议之一涉及一种工具的用途，该工具旨在根据一组自我报告的性格，社会和态度变量来挖掘一维生活史（LH）因素。在这里，我们采用一种新颖的方法来分析“亚利桑那州生命历史电池”的两种变体的心理测量：Mini-K和K-SF-42。心理网络分析生成模型，其中心理变量（思想，感觉或行为）构成网络的节点，而这些变量之间的部分相关系数则构成网络的边缘。中心指数（强度，亲密性，和中间性）基于该节点在其中扮演角色的连接模式来操作每个节点的重要性。由于假设儿童时期的环境会影响成人LH，因此我们检验了以下假设：Mini-K项目和K-SF-42量表中，与父母建立联系的那些量表是从以下各项构建的网络（成对马尔可夫随机场）的中心这些工具。在一个完成了Mini-K的MTurk样本和一个大学样本，以及一个完成K-SF-42的MTurk样本中，这个假设被证伪了。实际上，“与父母的关系”项目在所有三个网络中都是最外围的。我们建议将网络分析作为潜在变量建模的替代方法，