The Dark Side of Construct Convergence: Navigating Consensus, Evolution, and Practical Relevance in Theory Building

As fields of study solidify, agreement forms among scholars on how to define and measure constructs that are foundational to theory building. We refer to this agreement process as “construct convergence.” While construct convergence is essential for theorizing, we suggest there may also be negative, albeit unintended, consequences of construct convergence. In this paper, we explore this tension. We rely on an example from our work–family...