Points of contact between network psychometrics and experimental psychopathology

Abstract

Experimental psychology has long embodied the quest to identify the causes of psychopathology. This venerable tradition has been joined in this quest by network theory, a novel approach to conceptualizing episodes of disorder as emerging from complex systems characterized by dynamic interactions of symptoms. Although issuing from the correlational, psychometric tradition rather than the experimental one, it nevertheless offers methods for identifying symptom targets for clinical experimental intervention. The purpose of this article is to sketch the points of contact between network psychometrics and experimental psychopathology.