indexConflict3: Conflict or inconsistenciy measure for grids (Bell, 2004) based on distances.

Description

Conflict measure as proposed by Bell (2004).

Usage

indexConflict3(x, p = 2, e.out = NA, e.threshold = NA, c.out = NA,
  c.threshold = NA, trim = 20)

Arguments

repgrid object.

The power of the Minkowski distance. p=2 (default) will result in euclidean distances, p=1 in city block distances.

e.out

Numeric. A vector giving the indexes of the elements for which detailed stats (number of conflicts per element, discrepancies for triangles etc.) are promted (default NA, i.e. no detailed stats for any element).

e.threshold

Numeric. Detailed stats are prompted for those elements with a an attributable percentage to the overall conflicts higher than the supplied threshold (default NA).

c.out

Numeric. A vector giving the indexes of the constructs for which detailed stats (discrepancies for triangles etc.) are promted (default NA, i. e. no detailed stats).

c.threshold

Numeric. Detailed stats are prompted for those constructs with a an attributable percentage to the overall conflicts higher than the supplied threshold (default NA).

trim

The number of characters a construct (element) is trimmed to (default is 10). If NA no trimming is done. Trimming simply saves space when displaying the output.

Value

A list (invisibly) containing containing:
potentialnumber of potential conflicts
actualcount of actual conflicts
overallpercentage of conflictive relations
e.countnumber of involvements of each element in conflictive relations
e.percpercentage of involvement of each element in total of conflictive relations
e.countnumber of involvements of each construct in conflictive relation
c.percpercentage of involvement of each construct in total of conflictive relations
e.statsdetailed statistics for prompted elements
c.statsdetailed statistics for prompted constructs
e.thresholdthreshold percentage. Used by print method
c.thresholdthreshold percentage. Used by print method
enamestrimmed element names. Used by print method
cnamestrimmed construct names. Used by print method

output

For further control over the output see print.indexConflict3.

Details

Measure of conflict or inconsistency as proposed by Bell (2004). The identification of conflict is based on distances rather than correlations as in other measures of conflict indexConflict1 and indexConflict2. It assesses if the distances between all components of a triad, made up of one element and two constructs, satisfies the "triangle inequality" (cf. Bell, 2004). If not, a triad is regarded as conflictive. An advantage of the measure is that it can be interpreted not only as a global measure for a grid but also on an element, construct, and element by construct level making it valuable for detailed feedback. Also, differences in conflict can be submitted to statistical testing procedures.

Status: working; output for euclidean and manhattan distance checked against Gridstat output. TODO: standardization and z-test for discrepancies; Index of Conflict Variation.

References

Bell, R. C. (2004). A new approach to measuring inconsistency or conflict in grids. Personal Construct Theory & Practice, (1), 53-59.

Examples

Run this code

# calculate conflicts
 indexConflict3(bell2010)

 # show additional stats for elements 1 to 3
 indexConflict3(bell2010, e.out=1:3)

 # show additional stats for constructs 1 and 5
 indexConflict3(bell2010, c.out=c(1,5))

 # finetune output
 ## change number of digits
 x <- indexConflict3(bell2010)
 print(x, digits=4)

 ## omit discrepancy matrices for constructs
 x <- indexConflict3(bell2010, c.out=5:6)
 print(x, discrepancies=FALSE)

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