On the use of biological measures in health psychology: A multilevel, strong inference perspective

Advances in the use of biological assessments in Health Psychology have been impressive. Less appreciated is the critical role that strong inference plays in turning these advances into meaningful scientific progress. In this article, I argue for the importance of a multilevel, strong inference perspective informed and inspired by the writings of John Cacioppo, Gary Berntson, and Louis Tassinary in the 1990s.

Metatheoretical review of strong inference issues as applied to health psychology.

This article delineates at least two separable ways in which biological measures are used in health psychology: (a) an index of a psychosocial factor and (b) a mechanism for disease risk. It highlights the inference issues that arise with these questions via a focus on the specificity and generalizability of links between psychosocial factors and biology, as well as the orderly complexity added by a multilevel perspective on strong inference.

Inference issues are of critical importance to our field and have implications for scientific progress and guiding a program of research. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).