A primary goal of sociology (and science in general) is to provide accurate estimates of the causal relationship between concepts of central interest to the discipline. Thus, for example, sociologists might examine the causal link between the amount of money people make and how satisfied they are with their lives in general. But in assessing the causal relationships between concepts—such as income and life satisfaction—researchers are subject to making errors stemming from a multitude of sources. In this article, we will focus on one common and especially large source of errors in making causal inferences in sociology and other social and behavioral sciences—specifically, "measurement errors." Such errors will produce biased (under- or over- ) estimates of the true causal relationship between concepts.

Multiple indicator models are a method of testing and correcting for errors made in measuring a concept or "latent construct...