Current Research in the Behavioral Sciences: Using Multiple Measured Variables to Assess the Conceptual Variable of Panic Symptoms

Current Research in the Behavioral Sciences: Using Multiple

Measured Variables to Assess the Conceptual Variable of

Panic Symptoms

Bethany Teachman, Shannan Smith-Janik, and Jena Saporito are clinical psychologists who study psychological disorders. In one of their recent research projects (Teachman, Smith-Janik, & Saporito, 2007), they were interested in testing the extent to which a variety of direct and indirect measured variables could be used to help defi ne the underlying conceptual variable of the panic symptoms that are frequently experienced by people with anxiety disorders. They operationalized six different measured variables to assess the single conceptual variable. 

         Their research used a sample of 43 research participants who had been diagnosed with panic disorder. Each of the participants completed a variety of measures designed to assess their psychological states, both directly and indirectly. In terms of direct, self-report Likert-scale measures, the participants completed the Anxiety Sensitivity Index (Reiss, Peterson, Gursky, & McNally, 1986), which is a 16-item questionnaire assessing concern over the symptoms associated with anxiety; the Fear Questionnaire-Agoraphobia scale (Marks & Mathews, 1979), which measures level of phobic avoidance toward common situations; and the Panic Disorder Severity Scale (Shear et al., 1997), which is a measure of severity score of frequency, distress and impairment associated with panic attacks. 

         Another direct measure used a different response format. In the Brief Body Sensations Interpretation Questionnaire (Clark et al., 1997), participants are presented with ambiguous events and then asked to rank order three alternative explanations for why the event might have occurred. For instance, the participants are told, ‘‘You notice that your heart is beating quickly and pounding,’’ and had to choose one of three answers among ‘‘because you have been physically active,’’ ‘‘because there is something wrong with your heart,’’ or ‘‘because you are feeling excited.’’

       The researchers also used two indirect measures of panic symptoms, the Implicit Association Test (Greenwald et al., 1998), and a version of the Stroop Color and Word Test. Participants took these tests on a computer. In the Implicit Associations Test, the participants were asked to classify items as either “self” or “other” and as “panicked” or “calm.” The measured variable was the difference in the speed of classifying the self and panicked and the self and calm words. The idea is that if the individual has automatic associations with the self and panic symptoms, he or she will be able to classify the stimuli more quickly. 

         The Stroop Color and Word Test is a reaction time task that measures how fast the participant can name the color in which a word is presented. It is based on the assumption that words related to panic will be named more slowly because of interference caused by their semantic content. The difference in response time for naming the ink color across panic-related and control words was used as the measured variable. 

         As you can see in Figure 4.2, each of the six measured variables correlated positively with an overall measure of panic symptoms that was derived by statistically combining all of the measures together. You can see that, in this case, the direct measures correlated more highly with the composite than  did the indirect measures.