Approaches To Mediation
While the concept of mediation as defined within psychology is theoretically appealing, the methods used to study mediation empirically have been challenged by statisticians and epidemiologists and interpreted formally.
(1) Experimental-Causal-Chain Design
An experimental-causal-chain design is used when the proposed mediator is experimental manipulated. Such a design implies that one manipulates some controlled third variable that they have reason to believe could be the underlying mechanism of a given relationship.
(2) Measurement-of-Mediation Design
A measurement-of-mediation design can be conceptualized as a statistical approach. Such a design implies that one measures the proposed intervening variable and then uses statistical analyses to establish mediation. This approach does not involve manipulation of the hypothesized mediating variable, but only involves measurement.
See Spencer et al., 2005 for a discussion on the approaches mentioned above.
Read more about this topic: Mediation (statistics)
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