Workshop Exploring Attitudes with Response Item Networks

Workshop Proposal: Beyond Traditional Analysis: Exploring Attitudes with Response Item Networks

Renaud Mabire-Yon¹, Adrian Lüders², Philip Warncke³, Dino Carpentras⁴

¹Umr1296 « Radiations : Défense, Santé, Environnement », Inserm, Université Lumière Lyon 2 - Bron (France),

²Institut Des Sciences De La Communication, Université De Hohenheim - Stuttgart (Allemagne),

³Département De Science Politique, Université De Caroline Du Nord - Chapel Hill (États-Unis), 5Eth Zürich, Sciences Sociales Computationnelles - Zürich (Suisse)

⁵ Eth Zürich, Sciences Sociales Computationnelles - Zürich (Suisse)

Une partie de cet atelier se fera en français, une autre en anglais. 

This workshop introduces the Response Item Networks (ResIn) approach (Carpentras et al., 2021, 2022; Lüders et al., 2024), an innovative method for capturing the complexity of attitudes in social psychology, moving beyond the constraints of traditional analyses like factor analysis or clustering. ResIn intricately maps the network of item responses, fully appreciating attitudes' complex structure without assuming any preconceived structures. This approach is timely, especially in light of findings by Breznau et al. (2022), which highlighted significant variability in outcomes among researchers analyzing identical data, underscoring the urgency for methodologies that can comprehensively navigate data's complexity without bias.

Our session will delve into ResIn's theoretical underpinnings, practical applications through an R package. By examining works such as those by Carpentras, Lüders, & Quayle (2022) on anti-vaccine attitudes, this workshop will showcase how ResIn can reveal data structures that traditional methods overlook. Designed for researchers and advanced students, this workshop aims to inspire methodological innovation and foster a deeper, more nuanced understanding of social psychological phenomena.

Breznau, N., Rinke, E. M., Wuttke, A., Nguyen, H. H., Adem, M., Adriaans, J., Alvarez-Benjumea, A., Andersen, H. K., Auer, D., & Azevedo, F. (2022). Observing many researchers using the same data and hypothesis reveals a hidden universe of uncertainty. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 119(44), e2203150119.

Carpentras, D., Lüders, A., & Quayle, M. (2022). Mapping the global opinion space to explain anti-vaccine attraction. Scientific Reports, 12(1), Article 1. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-10069-3

Carpentras, D., Lueders, A., & Quayle, M. (2021). Response Item Network (ResIN): A network-based approach to explore attitude systems. PsyArXiv. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/uzdcg

Lüders, A., Carpentras, D., & Quayle, M. (2024). Attitude networks as intergroup realities: Using network-modelling to research attitude-identity relationships in polarized political contexts. British Journal of Social Psychology, 63(1), 37–51. https://doi.org/10.1111/bjso.12665