On the practice of dichotomization of quantitative variables.
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The authors examine the practice of dichotomization of quantitative measures, wherein relationships among variables are examined after 1 or more variables have been converted to dichotomous variables by splitting the sample at some point on the scale(s) of measurement. A common form of dichotomization is the median split, where the independent variable is split at the median to form high and low groups, which are then compared with respect to their means on the dependent variable. The consequences of dichotomization for measurement and statistical analyses are illustrated and discussed. The use of dichotomization in practice is described, and justifications that are offered for such usage are examined. The authors present the case that dichotomization is rarely defensible and often will yield misleading results.
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Grouping continuous data loses information and may reduce statistical power, especially when dichotomization is used.
“However, grouping loses information and may reduce statistical power [ 87 ] especially when dichotomization is used [ 82 , 85 , 88 ].”
From Strengthening the Reporting of Observational Studies in Epidemiology (STROBE): Explanation and Elaboration (2007) · cites this paper as [85]
In another survey, of the psychological literature, dichotomization was justified in only 22 of 110 articles (20%).
“In another survey, of the psychological literature, dichotomization was justified in only 22 of 110 articles (20%) [ 85 ].”
From Strengthening the Reporting of Observational Studies in Epidemiology (STROBE): Explanation and Elaboration (2007) · cites this paper as [85]
Dichotomisation will result in an unnecessary loss of statistical power and precision if continuous alternatives are available.
“However, such dichotomisation will result in an unnecessary loss of statistical power and precision if continuous alternatives are available (MacCallum et al., 2002; Royston et al., 2006).”
From Rating norms should be calculated from cumulative link mixed effects models (2022) · cites this paper as MacCallum et al., 2002
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Luyckx, K., Goossens, L., Soenens, B., & Beyers, W. (2005) · Journal of Adolescence · doi:10.1016/j.adolescence.2005.03.008 · Cited by 543 · see citing works
“The commonly used median-split procedure to derive these statuses, however, has major disadvantages and only allows a theory-based approach ( MacCallum, Zhang, Preacher, & Rucker, 2002 ).”
MethodA Review and Evaluation of Meta-Analysis Practices in Management Research
Geyskens, I., Krishnan, R., Steenkamp, J. E. M., & Cunha, P. V. (2008) · Journal of Management · doi:10.1177/0149206308328501 · Cited by 533 · see citing works
The Adult Attachment Interview and self-reports of attachment style: An empirical rapprochement.
Roisman, G. I., Holland, A. S., Fortuna, K., Fraley, R. C., Clausell, E., & Clarke, A. (2007) · Journal of Personality and Social Psychology · doi:10.1037/0022-3514.92.4.678 · Cited by 533 · see citing works
“M & G class Main and Goldwyn (1998) classifications; RQ class Relationship Questionnaire classifications; M & G scales Main and Goldwyn (1998) unresolved loss and abuse scales (coherence of mind is used in analyses above); ASS Collins and Read’s (1990) Adult Attachment Scale; RSQ Avoid/Anx factor analytically derived…”
BackgroundMethodToward a More Nuanced Understanding of the Statistical Properties of a Median Split
Iacobucci, D., Posavac, S. S., Kardes, F. R., Schneider, M. J., & Popovich, D. (2015) · Journal of Consumer Psychology · doi:10.1016/j.jcps.2014.12.002 · Cited by 483 · see citing works
“The traditional concern with median splits involves the loss of information about individual variability (Farewell et al., 2004; Humphreys, 1978; MacCallum et al., 2002; Neelamegham, 2001).”
InfluentialA conceptual and empirical examination of justifications for dichotomization.
Decoster, J., Iselin, A.-M. R., & Gallucci, M. (2009) · Psychological methods · doi:10.1037/a0016956 · Cited by 483 · see citing works
“While methodologists have shown through mathematical proofs and Monte Carlo simulations that dichotomization leads to weaker and potentially misleading statistical tests, almost all of these were based on the assumption that the variable being dichotomized has a naturally continuous and typically normal distribution (…”
BackgroundThe Ordinal Effects of Ostracism: A Meta-Analysis of 120 Cyberball Studies
Hartgerink, C. H. J., van Beest, I., Wicherts, J. M., & Williams, K. D. (2015) · PLOS ONE · doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0127002 · Cited by 558 · see citing works
“, underestimation of effect size, spurious effects [22,23]; four cases).”
Everyday Attention: Variation in Mind Wandering and Memory in a Lecture
Risko, E. F., Anderson, N., Sarwal, A., Engelhardt, M., & Kingstone, A. (2012) · Applied Cognitive Psychology · doi:10.1002/acp.1814 · Cited by 445 · see citing works
Markon, K. E., Chmielewski, M., & Miller, C. J. (2011) · Psychological Bulletin · doi:10.1037/a0023678 · Cited by 656 · see citing works
Perceived behavioral control moderating effects in the theory of planned behavior: A meta-analysis.
Hagger, M. S., Cheung, M. W. ‐., Ajzen, I., & Hamilton, K. (2022) · Health Psychology · doi:10.1037/hea0001153 · Cited by 433 · see citing works
Morin, A. J. S., Morizot, J., Boudrias, J., & Madore, I. (2010) · Organizational Research Methods · doi:10.1177/1094428109356476 · Cited by 423 · see citing works
Marsh, H. W., Nagengast, B., & Morin, A. J. S. (2012) · Developmental Psychology · doi:10.1037/a0026913 · Cited by 422 · see citing works
Designing, testing, and interpreting interactions and moderator effects in family research
Whisman, M. A., & McClelland, G. H. (2005) · Journal of Family Psychology · doi:10.1037/0893-3200.19.1.111 · Cited by 421 · see citing works
The Stability and Change of Loneliness Across the Life Span: A Meta-Analysis of Longitudinal Studies
Mund, M., Freuding, M. M., Möbius, K., Horn, N., & Neyer, F. J. (2020) · Personality and Social Psychology Review · doi:10.1177/1088868319850738 · Cited by 417 · see citing works
Resilience to suicidality: The buffering hypothesis
Johnson, J., Wood, A. M., Gooding, P. A., Taylor, P. J., & Tarrier, N. (2011) · Clinical Psychology Review · doi:10.1016/j.cpr.2010.12.007 · Cited by 425 · see citing works
The role of defeat and entrapment in depression, anxiety, and suicide.
Taylor, P. J., Gooding, P. A., Wood, A. M., & Tarrier, N. (2011) · Psychological Bulletin · doi:10.1037/a0022935 · Cited by 418 · see citing works
Determinants and Outcomes of Customers' Use of Self-Service Technology in a Retail Setting
Weijters, B., Rangarajan, D., Falk, T., & Schillewaert, N. (2007) · Journal of Service Research · doi:10.1177/1094670507302990 · Cited by 415 · see citing works
“First, although gender is a dichotomous variable, age and education are measured at a ratio level and should be treated as such (MacCallum et al. 2002).”
BackgroundZacher, H., & Frese, M. (2009) · Psychology and Aging · doi:10.1037/a0015425 · Cited by 381 · see citing works
“comparison of artificially created age groups ( MacCallum, Zhang, Preacher, & Rucker, 2002 ),”
BackgroundA probability-based measure of effect size: Robustness to base rates and other factors.
Ruscio, J. (2008) · Psychological Methods · doi:10.1037/1082-989x.13.1.19 · Cited by 398 · see citing works
Fraley, R. C., Hudson, N., Heffernan, M. E., & Segal, N. (2015) · Journal of Personality and Social Psychology · doi:10.1037/pspp0000027 · Cited by 380 · see citing works
Development and Testing of an Abbreviated Numeracy Scale: A Rasch Analysis Approach
Weller, J. A., Dieckmann, N. F., Tusler, M., Mertz, C. K., Burns, W. J., & Peters, E. M. (2012) · Journal of Behavioral Decision Making · doi:10.1002/bdm.1751 · Cited by 391 · see citing works
Gibb, B. E., Chelminski, I., & Zimmerman, M. A. (2006) · Depression and Anxiety · doi:10.1002/da.20238 · Cited by 389 · see citing works
Matta, F. K., Scott, B. A., Koopman, J., & Conlon, D. E. (2014) · Academy of Management Journal · doi:10.5465/amj.2014.0106 · Cited by 388 · see citing works
Siyanova‐Chanturia, A., Conklin, K., & van Heuven, W. J. B. (2011) · Journal of Experimental Psychology Learning Memory and Cognition · doi:10.1037/a0022531 · Cited by 369 · see citing works
How cross-language similarity and task demands affect cognate recognition
Dijkstra, T., Miwa, K., Brummelhuis, B., Sappelli, M., & Baayen, R. (2010) · Journal of Memory and Language · doi:10.1016/j.jml.2009.12.003 · Cited by 425 · see citing works
“Very similar results are obtained when the orthographic rating is dichotomized into high (>2) and low ( =2), although in general dichotomization is not advisable (see, e.g., Cohen, 1983, MacCallum et al., 2002).”
ResultMurphy, R. O., & Ackermann, K. A. (2013) · Personality and Social Psychology Review · doi:10.1177/1088868313501745 · Cited by 369 · see citing works
“For a surprisingly long time it was a convention in psychology to dichotomize continuous variables for analyses (see MacCallum et al., 2002).”
BackgroundHankin, B., Fraley, R. C., Lahey, B. B., & Waldman, I. (2005) · Journal of Abnormal Psychology · doi:10.1037/0021-843x.114.1.96 · Cited by 363 · see citing works
Best Practices for Using Median Splits, Artificial Categorization, and their Continuous Alternatives
Decoster, J., Gallucci, M., & Iselin, A.-M. R. (2011) · Journal of Experimental Psychopathology · doi:10.5127/jep.008310 · Cited by 367 · see citing works
Childhood maltreatment and non-suicidal self-injury: a systematic review and meta-analysis
Liu, R. T., Scopelliti, K. M., Pittman, S. K., & Zamora, A. (2017) · The Lancet Psychiatry · doi:10.1016/s2215-0366(17)30469-8 · Cited by 381 · see citing works
Demes, K. A., & Geeraert, N. (2013) · Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology · doi:10.1177/0022022113487590 · Cited by 375 · see citing works
“However, this approach seems to be flawed conceptually (Boski, 2008; Playford & Safdar, 2007; Rudmin, 2009) and statistically (DeCoster, Iselin, & Gallucci, 2009; Fitzsimons, 2008; MacCallum et al., 2002).”
BackgroundA more general model for testing measurement invariance and differential item functioning
Bauer, D. J. (2017) · Psychological Methods · doi:10.1037/met0000077 · Cited by 363 · see citing works
“Additionally, any continuous characteristics would have to be discretized (e.g., by a median split), a practice that can reduce power and bias estimates (MacCallum et al., 2002).”
Testing Berry's model of acculturation: A confirmatory latent class approach.
Schwartz, S. J., & Zamboanga, B. L. (2008) · Cultural Diversity & Ethnic Minority Psychology · doi:10.1037/a0012818 · Cited by 355 · see citing works
Brennan, N. A., Toubouti, Y., Cheng, X., & Bullimore, M. (2020) · Progress in retinal and eye research · doi:10.1016/j.preteyeres.2020.100923 · Cited by 329 · see citing works
Discrete Emotions and Persuasion: The Role of Emotion-Induced Expectancies.
DeSteno, D. A., Petty, R. E., Rucker, D. D., Wegener, D. T., & Braverman, J. (2004) · Journal of Personality and Social Psychology · doi:10.1037/0022-3514.86.1.43 · Cited by 348 · see citing works
Self-citationBurnout and Depression: Two Entities or One?
Schonfeld, I. S., & Bianchi, R. (2016) · Journal of Clinical Psychology · doi:10.1002/jclp.22229 · Cited by 345 · see citing works
Two Traditions of Research on Gender Identity
Wood, W., & Eagly, A. H. (2015) · Sex Roles · doi:10.1007/s11199-015-0480-2 · Cited by 348 · see citing works
A Systematic Review of Neighborhood Disparities in Point-of-Sale Tobacco Marketing
Lee, J. G. L., Henriksen, L., Rose, S. W., et al. (2015) · American Journal of Public Health · doi:10.2105/ajph.2015.302777 · Cited by 339 · see citing works
“Such categorization can reduce power to detect an effect.(77)”
Resilience Building in Students: The Role of Academic Self-Efficacy
Cassidy, S. (2015) · Frontiers in Psychology · doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2015.01781 · Cited by 495 · see citing works
“Hamill (2003) has explored this issue but using generalized measures of self-efficacy and coping responses in the context of general stressful life events in a small sample of 16–19 year old students—limitations which Hamil partly acknowledges.”
BackgroundFriendship versus Business in Marketing Relationships
Grayson, K. A. (2007) · Journal of Marketing · doi:10.1509/jmkg.71.4.121 · Cited by 336 · see citing works
“Thus, this measure was treated as a binary variable (MacCallum et al. 2002), in which a score less than or equal to 4 (“acquaintance”) was coded as 0 (“no previous friendship”) and a score greater than 4 was coded as 1 (“previously friends”).”
BackgroundMethodInfluentialMultilevel models for the experimental psychologist: Foundations and illustrative examples
Hoffman, L., & Rovine, M. J. (2007) · Behavior Research Methods · doi:10.3758/bf03192848 · Cited by 336 · see citing works
“However, because the categorization of continuous independent variables substantially reduces the power to detect effects and inflates Type I error rates, methodologists strongly discourage doing so (e.g., Cohen, 1983; MacCallum, Zhang, Preacher, & Rucker, 2002; Maxwell & Delaney, 1993).”
Fair Statistical Communication in HCI
Dragicevic, P. (2016) · Human-computer interaction series · doi:10.1007/978-3-319-26633-6_13 · Cited by 339 · see citing works
A prospective investigation of the development of borderline personality symptoms
Carlson, E. A., Egeland, B. R., & Sroufe, L. A. (2009) · Development and Psychopathology · doi:10.1017/s0954579409990174 · Cited by 329 · see citing works
Fabrigar, L. R., Petty, R. E., Smith, S. M., & Crites, S. L. (2006) · Journal of Personality and Social Psychology · doi:10.1037/0022-3514.90.4.556 · Cited by 333 · see citing works
Characterizing the social diversity of bilingualism using language entropy
Gullifer, J. W., & Titone, D. A. (2019) · Bilingualism Language and Cognition · doi:10.1017/s1366728919000026 · Cited by 332 · see citing works
Marsh, H. W., Ellis, L. A., Parada, R. H., Richards, G. E., & Heubeck, B. G. (2005) · Psychological Assessment · doi:10.1037/1040-3590.17.1.81 · Cited by 326 · see citing works
- Authors
- MacCallum, R. C., Zhang, S., Preacher, K. J., & Rucker, D. D.
- Affiliations
- The Ohio State University (US)
- Venue
- Psychological Methods
- Published
- 2002
- Volume
- 7
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 19-40
- ISSN
- 1082-989X (ISSN-L)
- 1939-1463
- OpenAlex
- W2108096958
- Semantic Scholar
- 67646d3def337c40bbfa2476f0f1ff785ae18242
- Cited by
- 3,538
- References
- 42
- Citations by year
- 2026: 282 · 2025: 170 · 2024: 149 · 2023: 134 · 2022: 183 · 2021: 211 · 2020: 204 · 2019: 179 · 2018: 180 · 2017: 223 · 2016: 208 · 2015: 208 · 2014: 184 · 2013: 187 · 2012: 138
- FWCI
- 55.97
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- Licence
- other-oa
- Locations
- Psychological Methods (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- KU ScholarWorks (The University of Kansas) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Decision Sciences › Management Science and Operations Research › Psychometric Methodologies and Testing
- Physical Sciences › Mathematics › Statistics and Probability › Statistical Methods and Applications
- Physical Sciences › Mathematics › Statistics and Probability › Statistical Methods and Bayesian Inference
- Keywords
- dichotomization, quantitative variables, statistical analysis, change of variables, measurement error
- MeSH terms
- Humans, Models, Psychological, Psychology
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