Mediator Variable
A mediator variable (or mediating variable, or intervening variable) in statistics is a variable that describes how rather than when effects will occur by accounting for the relationship between the independent and dependent variables. A mediating relationship is one in which the path relating A to C is mediated by a third variable (B).
For example, a mediating variable explains the actual relationship between the following variables. Most people will agree that older drivers (up to a certain point), are better drivers. Thus:
- Aging Better driving
But what is missing from this relationship is a mediating variable that is actually causing the improvement in driving: experience. The mediated relationship would look like the following:
- Aging Increased experience driving a car Better driving
Mediating variables are often contrasted with moderating variables, which pinpoint the conditions under which an independent variable exerts its effects on a dependent variable.
Read more about this topic: Mediation (statistics)
Famous quotes containing the words mediator and/or variable:
“Their errors have been weighed and found to have been dust in the balance; if their sins were as scarlet, they are now white as snow: they have been washed in the blood of the mediator and the redeemer, Time.”
—Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822)
“There is not so variable a thing in nature as a lady’s head-dress.”
—Joseph Addison (1672–1719)