Multimodal diagnostics

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Multimodal diagnostics (also multi-method diagnostics, multi-method assessment, German multi-level diagnostics) is a demanding method of psychological diagnostics for confirming findings by differentiating between different areas and combining them when recording features:

  • Data level as a basic category (biological, psychological, social and ecological level)
  • Data source (e.g. examined person himself, external perception by third parties, registered behavior, documents)
  • Investigation method (e.g. judgment process, performance test, apparatus method)
  • Functional areas ( experience or behavior ; specific constructs )

Every diagnostic method for obtaining information can be classified according to the four aforementioned categories. By combining different methods, contradictions and differences can be uncovered that can be used diagnostically (e.g. performance measured by performance test, self-assessment, third-party assessment and a work sample).

definition

Psychological characteristics of a person such as personality traits , abilities , attitudes and well-being can usually be recorded using different methods (see multitrait-multimethod matrix). In addition to self-reports and self-assessments in standardized questionnaires, there are behavioral assessments by other people, psychological interviews , psychological tests and measurements of behavior , and in some diagnostic areas also the methods of neuropsychology and psychophysiology . Multimodal diagnostics means not only different methods, e.g. B. to use two suitable questionnaires or several observers, but to consider fundamentally (categorically) different data levels: the subjective-verbal level, the objectively observable behavior and, if possible, the accompanying physiological changes.

The idea of ​​multiple, i.e. multiple operationalization , was also adopted in the field of qualitative social research (cf. Flick, 2008). The term triangulation chosen there is misleading, however, because in geodesy and geometry it originally meant the precise quantitative measurement of position from different points of view.

Personality psychology

Mainly Raymond B. Cattell (1957) undertook a very extensive research program to use multimodal assessment to achieve scientifically more reliable descriptions of personality traits and other basic characteristics of mental state, motives and attitudes. This program was not able to convince because of the often only slight correspondence between the alleged measures (alleged or hypothetical indicators ) of “the same” personality trait and has not been continued so far.

Amelang and Schmidt-Atzert (2006) have the impression that institutionalized psychological diagnostics are mostly unimodal and individual diagnostics are mostly multimodal. In the case of moderate concordance (agreement) of data from different sources, there are possibilities for improvement: the summary ( aggregation ) over examination times and over criteria areas. " According to the general opinion, the guiding principle here is that a finding can only be regarded as certain if it is confirmed by at least 2 different methods of as different types as possible ". In the event of contradicting findings, the diagnostician has, at least in the individual examinations , the " possibility to investigate the causes of discrepancies by talking to the person examined, by analyzing the methods used and observed processes or by consulting further information "

Competent psychologists will in many cases strive for multiple operationalizations ; H. select a combination of methods, especially when it comes to relatively broad theoretical terms ( fear , emotionality , aggressiveness , intelligence, etc.) or when very reliable diagnoses and important decisions are important.

Clinical Psychology

In the 1970s, there was a trend towards multimodal diagnostics in clinical psychology (Seidenstücker and Baumann, 1978). A more recent review showed that in many areas of clinical psychology, self-assessments and assessments by others are often only moderately correlated. H. a significant number of individual cases different (or wrong) classifies be, partly as overconfidence, partly as underestimation of mental disorders (Baumann and Stieglitz, 2008). Part of the problem is the extreme number of psychological procedures. According to Baumann and Stieglitz, there are more than 100 scales for diagnosing depression ( depression ) and about the same number for diagnosing anxiety . In addition, many external assessments are based to a greater or lesser extent on the self-reports of the patients and are therefore methodologically interdependent. The widespread AMDP system for the standardized recording and documentation of psychopathological findings also contains a large number of such categorically unclear classifications: 50 out of 100 items are based on self-assessments, 20 on assessments by the classifier or reliable information from third parties and 30 on both information sources (Stieglitz, 2000).

Baumann and Stieglitz draw their conclusion: " Even if multimodal diagnostics are theoretically justifiable, necessary in terms of content and methodologically verifiable, their implementation often proves to be difficult to this day ... " See one reason why this approach is not widely used in the fact that there are no binding guidelines for diagnosis - in contrast to psychotherapy .

Fear research

The diagnosis of anxiety disorders and phobic disorders is the best known example of how important and how difficult multimodal diagnostics are, because the feeling of fear , the fear behavior and the fear physiology often differ from one another (see Fahrenberg and Wilhelm, 2009). For fear researchers and behavior therapists alike, it is a difficult challenge when the subjective level, the fearful avoidance behavior and the physiological measurements of the vegetative nervous system and the endocrine system - neither at the beginning, during the course or at the end of a therapy - are clear in everyday situations to match. The general term fear could be very misleading here. It is still unclear whether the therapy processes with increasing or high concordance of functional systems are more effective and sustainable compared to discordant processes .

Personnel Psychology

The recruitment of staff, including executives is often in an assessment center carried out by a combination of different research methods ( interview , questionnaires , behavioral observation , work samples) to be secure as possible recommendations for the purposes of multimodal diagnosis. In this context , the Multimodal Interview (MMI) developed by Heinz Schuler is ideal , as it is one of the most predictive types of interview and in itself takes multimodality into account. In this interview , a combination of constructive , simulation-oriented and biographical procedures as well as various degrees of structuring are taken into account.

See also

literature

  • Manfred Amelang, Lothar Schmidt-Atzert: Psychological diagnostics and intervention. 4th edition Springer, Berlin 2006, ISBN 978-3-540-28507-6 .
  • Urs Baumann, Rolf-Dieter Stieglitz : Multimodal Diagnostics - 30 years later. In: Journal for Psychiatry, Psychology and Psychotherapy, 2008, Volume 56, 191-202.
  • Jürgen Bortz, Nicola Döring: Research methods and evaluation for human and social scientists. 4th edition. Springer, Heidelberg 2006, ISBN 3-540-33305-3 .
  • Raymond B. Cattell: Personality and motivation. Structure and measurement. New York: World Book, New York 1957.
  • Jochen Fahrenberg (Ed.): Multimodal Diagnostics [special issue] . In: Diagnostica , 1987, Volume 33, Issue 4.
  • Jochen Fahrenberg, Frank H. Wilhelm: Psychophysiology and behavior therapy. In: Jürgen Margraf, Silvia Schneider (eds.). Behavioral Therapy Textbook. 3rd edition. Springer, Berlin 2009, ISBN 978-3-540-79541-4 , pp. 163-179.
  • Uwe Flick: Triangulation. An introduction. 2nd edition VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, Wiesbaden 2008, ISBN 978-3-531-15666-8 .
  • Heidrun Hufnagel: From Assessment Center to Multimodal Selection Process. Lexika-Verlag, Würzburg 2001, ISBN 3896942786 .
  • Gerd Seidenstücker, Urs Baumann: Multimodal diagnostics as standard in clinical psychology. In: Diagnostica , 1987, Volume 33, 243-258.
  • Heinz H. Schuler (Hrsg.): Textbook of Personnel Psychology. Hogrefe, Göttingen 2001, ISBN 3801709442 , pp. 176-208.
  • Rolf-Dieter Stieglitz: Diagnosis and classification of mental disorders. Hogrefe, Göttingen 2000, ISBN 978-3-17-018944-7 .
  • Werner W. Wittmann: Fundamentals of successful research in psychology: multimodal diagnostics, multiplism, multivariate reliability and validity theory. In: Diagnostica , 1987, Volume 33, 209-226.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Seidenstücker and Baumann 1987, Baumann and Stieglitz 2001 , cited above. after Rolf-Dieter Stieglitz (2008). Diagnostics and classification in psychiatry. Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, p.156 ff
  2. ↑ Manfred Amelang, Lothar Schmidt-Atzert: Psychological Diagnostics and Intervention, p. 372.
  3. ↑ Urs Baumann, Rolf-Dieter Stieglitz: Multimodal Diagnostics - 30 Years Later, p. 199