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The measurement of the mediator and its influence on statistical mediation conclusions
- Source :
- Psychol Methods
- Publication Year :
- 2021
- Publisher :
- American Psychological Association (APA), 2021.
-
Abstract
- In psychology, the causal process between 2 variables can be studied with statistical mediation analysis. To make a causal interpretation about the relation between variables, researchers who use the statistical mediation model make many assumptions about the variables in the model, among which are measurement assumptions about the mediator. For example, researchers often assume that the measure of the mediator yields scores that are reliable and that have a valid interpretation. In this article, we address how several measurement challenges affect the conclusions of statistical mediation analysis, and how researchers can use different psychometric models to study theoretically different causal processes. We use simulated data sets to illustrate how 10 well-fitting and theoretically sound statistical mediation models could significantly detect the indirect effect or miss it entirely depending on how the mediator is represented in the model. In the example, power to detect the indirect effect varied by the amount of true mediator variance that the psychometric model of the mediator was able to isolate. Different strategies to incorporate psychometric methods into mediation research are discussed and future directions are considered. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).
- Subjects :
- Mediation (statistics)
Models, Statistical
Psychometrics
05 social sciences
Reproducibility of Results
050401 social sciences methods
Validity
PsycINFO
Test validity
Variance (accounting)
Affect (psychology)
Article
0504 sociology
Data Interpretation, Statistical
Humans
Psychology
Computer Simulation
Psychology (miscellaneous)
Factor Analysis, Statistical
Factor analysis
Cognitive psychology
Subjects
Details
- ISSN :
- 19391463 and 1082989X
- Volume :
- 26
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- Psychological Methods
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi.dedup.....35efeb9ad2b0182408a0b56a0fe42eaa