Mediation (statistics) - Baron and Kenny's (1986) Steps For Mediation

Baron and Kenny's (1986) Steps For Mediation

Baron and Kenny (1986) laid out several requirements that must be met to form a true mediation relationship. They are outlined below using a real world example. See the diagram above for a visual representation of the overall mediating relationship to be explained.

Step 1:

Regress the dependent variable on the independent variable. In other words, confirm that the independent variable is a significant predictor of the dependent variable.

Independent Variable Dependent Variable

• β₁₁ is significant

Step2:

Regress the mediator on the independent variable. In other words, confirm that the independent variable is a significant predictor of the mediator. If the mediator is not associated with the independent variable, then it couldn’t possibly mediate anything.

Independent Variable Mediator

• β₂₁ is significant

Step 3:

Regress the dependent variable on both the mediator and independent variable. In other words, confirm that the mediator is a significant predictor of the dependent variable, while controlling for the independent variable.

This step involves demonstrating that when the mediator and the independent variable are used simultaneously to predict the dependent variable, the previously significant path between the independent and dependent variable (Step #1) is now greatly reduced, if not nonsignificant. In other words, if the mediator were to be removed from the relationship, the relationship between the independent and dependent variables would be noticeably reduced.

• β₃₂ is significant
• β₃₁ should be smaller in absolute value than the original mediation effect (β₁₁ above)

Example

The following example, drawn from Howell (2009), explains each step of Baron and Kenny’s requirements to understand further how a mediation effect is characterized. Step 1 and step 2 use simple regression analysis, whereas step 3 uses multiple regression analysis.

Step 1:

How you were parented (i.e., independent variable) predicts how confident you feel about parenting your own children (i.e., dependent variable).

How you were parented Confidence in own parenting abilities.

Step 2:

How you were parented (i.e., independent variable) predicts your feelings of competence and self-esteem (i.e., mediator).

How you were parented Feelings of competence and self-esteem.

Step 3:

Your feelings of competence and self-esteem (i.e., mediator) predict how confident you feel about parenting your own children (i.e., dependent variable), while controlling for how you were parented (i.e., independent variable).

Such findings would lead to the conclusion implying that your feelings of competence and self-esteem mediate the relationship between how you were parented and how confident you feel about parenting your own children.

Note: If step 1 does not yield a significant result, one may still have grounds to move to step 2. Sometimes there is actually a significant relationship between independent and dependent variables but because of small sample sizes, or other extraneous factors, there could not be enough power to predict the effect that actually exists (See Shrout & Bolger, 2002 for more info).