The DOI matches its Crossref record; 23 of the 23 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
Monotonicity of effect sizes: questioning kappa-squared as mediation effect size measure
Abstract
Mediation analysis is important for research in psychology and other social and behavioral sciences. Great progress has been made in testing mediation effects and in constructing their confidence intervals. Mediation effect sizes have also been considered. Preacher and Kelley (2011) proposed and recommended κ² as an effect size measure for a mediation effect. In this article, we argue that κ² is not an appropriate effect size measure for mediation models, because of its lack of the property of rank preservation (e.g., the magnitude of κ² may decrease when the mediation effect that κ² represents increases). Furthermore, κ² can lead to paradoxical results in multiple mediation models. We show that the problem of κ² is due to (a) the improper calculation of the maximum possible value of the indirect effect, and (b) mathematically, the maximum possible indirect effect is infinity, implying that the definition of κ² is mathematically incorrect. At this time, it appears that the traditional mediation effect size measure PM (the ratio of the indirect effect to the total effect), together with some other statistical information, should be preferred for basic mediation models. But for inconsistent mediation models where the indirect effect and the direct effect have opposite signs, the situation is less clear. Other considerations and suggestions for future research are also discussed.
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“Three single-arm trials showed that increased global trait mindfulness mediated the impact of MBIs on reduction in GAD severity [8] and perceived stress [9-11]”
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“evidence that MBIs better equipped people with GAD and depression with the skills to perceive emotions and thoughts as transient occurrences rather than personally associating with them – a process called “decentering” – than controls [8, 95]”
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Hayes, A. F., & Rockwood, N. J. (2017) · Behaviour Research and Therapy · doi:10.1016/j.brat.2016.11.001 · Cited by 2,350
Best (but oft-forgotten) practices: mediation analysis ,
Fairchild, A. J., & McDaniel, H. L. (2017) · American Journal of Clinical Nutrition · doi:10.3945/ajcn.117.152546 · Cited by 548
“, the maximum possible value varies as a function of the scale of the variables) but subsequent research has shown that the measure does not monotonically relate to the mediation parameter estimate with which it is associated (89).”
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On the Interpretation and Use of Mediation: Multiple Perspectives on Mediation Analysis
Agler, R. A., & de Boeck, P. A. L. (2017) · Frontiers in Psychology · doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2017.01984 · Cited by 436
“Numerous effect size indices have been proposed for the IE, and these indices may take the form of either variance in the DV explained or in terms of the relative effects as in the case of the ratio ab/c (an excellent review may be found in Preacher and Kelley, 2011; note however the specific effect size proposed by t…”
BackgroundBarnett, L. M., Webster, E. K., Hulteen, R. M., Meester, A. D., Valentini, N. C., Lenoir, M., Pesce, C., Getchell, N., Lopes, V. P., Robinson, L. E., et al. (2021) · Sports Medicine · doi:10.1007/s40279-021-01516-8 · Cited by 418
Metadata
- Authors
- Wen, Z., & Fan, X.
- Affiliations
- South China Normal University (CN)
- University of Macau (MO)
- Venue
- Psychological Methods
- Published
- 2015
- Volume
- 20
- Issue
- 2
- Pages
- 193-203
- ISSN
- 1082-989X (ISSN-L)
- 1939-1463
- OpenAlex
- W2155202060
- Cited by
- 350
- References
- 23
- Citations by year
- 2026: 20 · 2025: 23 · 2024: 28 · 2023: 31 · 2022: 43 · 2021: 41 · 2020: 30 · 2019: 47 · 2018: 33 · 2017: 38 · 2016: 14 · 2015: 2
- FWCI
- 25.81
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Update notices
- correction (2015-05-11)
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Psychological Methods (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Funders
- National Natural Science Foundation of China (31271116 and 31400909)
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Mathematics › Statistics and Probability › Advanced Causal Inference Techniques
- Social Sciences › Decision Sciences › Statistics, Probability and Uncertainty › Meta-analysis and systematic reviews
- Social Sciences › Decision Sciences › Management Science and Operations Research › Psychometric Methodologies and Testing
- Keywords
- indirect effects, rank preservation, monotonicity, multiple mediation, effect size measures, mediation analysis
- MeSH terms
- Behavioral Sciences, Humans, Statistics as Topic, Models, Statistical, Confidence Intervals
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