Operational Definitions and the Psychology 242 Love Machine

 

This week, as a homework assignment, you have been asked to get at least one friend or family member to complete the Psychology 242 Love Machine that we constructed in sections last week.  Next week we will be analyzing the data that we collected in order to see how “love” scores vary as a function of gender, age, etc.  Before we can do that, however, we need a way of mapping the relationship between each of our manifest indicators (i.e., the questionnaire items) and our latent variable, “love.” 

 

Your task this week in section is to develop a way to map the questionnaire responses to a latent love scale.  (See Lecture 8, Feb 16th, for more details on how to create such mappings.  Please keep in mind that you first have to determine what kind of metric or scale you are using for “love,” determine the minimum and maximum observed values [these will be obvious for the 1 to 7 scale questions, but you may have to wait until you have the data for the open-ended questions], and then illustrate how you will transform the questionnaire scores to scores on your “love” scale.)  You can choose to either work only with the questionnaire items you and your section generated last week or, if you prefer, you can take advantage of the full questionnaire for this task.  I’ve pasted the questionnaire items below to make this easier for you.  (Please note that I had to reword some of the questions and deleted questions that were similar to those generated in other sections.)

 

Once your section has generated a means to operationally define love using these questionnaire responses, your TA will e-mail me the “recipe” or “rules” and I will write a web program that takes the scores and automatically computes the estimated love score.  I’ll also create a program that you can use to calculate the scores for other participants.

 

Are you male or female?
Female
Male

What is your age?


Are you married to PERSON?
Yes
No

If you are married to PERSON, for how long have you been married?
years
Questions:
1. Would you be willing to risk your life for PERSON?
Yes
No

2. Are you thinking about PERSON while you are taking this test?
Yes
No

3. I would forgive PERSON if he or she cheated on me.
Yes
No

4. I enjoy doing special things for PERSON for no apparent reason.
Yes
No

5. After having a bad day, hearing from PERSON makes me happy.
Yes
No

6. I see PERSON as a part of my future.
Yes
No

7. I want to have needs met just as much as mine.
never always

8. I look forward to the time PERSON and I spend together.
never always

9. When I'm not with PERSON, I'm thinking about him or her.
never always

10. If PERSON wanted me to give up something important to me, I would.
never always

11. I look forward to talking to PERSON everyday.
never always

12. My feelings for PERSON affect my everyday behavior.
never always

13. I feel that I can trust PERSON.
never always

14. I would take a bullet for PERSON.
never always

15. I am willing to make sacrifices to help PERSON with his or her goals.
never always

16. Is your love for PERSON unconditional, or does it need constant assurance?
Unconditional
Constant assurance

17. If PERSON could not care for him or herself, would you care for him or her?
Yes
No

18. How much do you miss PERSON when you are away from him or her?
not much at all a lot

19. Do you feel you could ever be as emotionally attached to someone else as you are for PERSON?
Yes
No

20. How willing would you be to leave PERSON if you knew that they would be better off without you?
not at all willing very willing

21. How long do you expect to stay with PERSON?
years

22. How willing are you to spend time together with PERSON in complete isolation from others?
not at all willing very willing

23. How willing are you to sacrifice things that are important to you for PERSON?
not at all willing very willing

24. How often do you think positive thoughts about PERSON?
very infrequently very frequently

25. How often you do think about PERSON?
very infrequently very frequently

26. How proud are you of PERSON?
not proud at all very proud

27. What proportion of the day would you like spend with ?
percent of the day

28. How willing are you to look past imperfections?
not at all willing very willing