Pseudo Effects: How Method Biases Can Produce Spurious Findings About Close Relationships
研究发现，在人际关系研究中，共享方法偏差（如情感泛化）会显著夸大测量间的关联，甚至使无关评价（如“我的关系有很好的土星”）也能预测关系满意度，提醒学者需严格区分真实效应与方法伪迹。
Research on interpersonal relationships frequently relies on accurate self-reporting across various relationship facets (e.g., conflict, trust, appreciation). Yet shared method biases—which may greatly inflate associations between measures—are rarely accounted for during measurement validation or hypothesis testing. To examine how method biases can affect relationship research, we embarked on the ironic exploration of a new construct— Pseudo —comprised of irrelevant relationship evaluations (e.g., “My relationship has very good Saturn”). Pseudo was moderately associated with common relationship measures (e.g., satisfaction, commitment) and predicted those measures 3 weeks later. Results of a dyadic longitudinal study suggested that Pseudo taps into method biases, particularly sentiment override (i.e., people’s tendency to project their global relationship sentiments onto every relationship evaluation). We conclude that psychometric standards must be sufficiently rigorous to distinguish genuine constructs and associations from methodological artifacts that can otherwise pose a serious validity threat.