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Mediation, Moderation, and Conditional Process Analysis: Concepts, Computations, and Some Common Confusions

Part of: Current Debate in Psychology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 October 2021

Juan-José Igartua Open the ORCID record for Juan-José Igartua [Opens in a new window]  and
Andrew F. Hayes Open the ORCID record for Andrew F. Hayes [Opens in a new window]
Juan-José Igartua*
Affiliation:
Universidad de Salamanca (Spain)
Andrew F. Hayes
Affiliation:
University of Calgary (Canada)
*
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Juan-José Igartua. Universidad de Salamanca. Facultad de Ciencias Sociales. Departamento de Sociología y Comunicación. Campus Unamuno, Edificio FES. 37008 Salamanca (Spain). E-mail: jigartua@usal.es
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Abstract

This work provides a conceptual introduction to mediation, moderation, and conditional process analysis in psychological research. We discuss the concepts of direct effect, indirect effect, total effect, conditional effect, conditional direct effect, conditional indirect effect, and the index of moderated mediation index, while providing our perspective on certain analysis and interpretation confusions that sometimes arise in practice in this journal and elsewhere, such as reliance on the causal steps approach and the Sobel test in mediation analysis, misinterpreting the regression coefficients in a model that includes a product of variables, and subgroups mediation analysis rather than conditional process analysis when exploring whether an indirect effect depends on a moderator. We also illustrate how to conduct various analyses that are the focus of this paper with the freely-available PROCESS procedure available for SPSS, SAS, and R, using data from an experimental investigation on the effectiveness of personal or testimonial narrative messages in improving intergroup attitudes.

Keywords

conditional process analysismediation analysismoderation analysisPROCESS
Type
Research Article
Information
The Spanish Journal of Psychology , Volume 24 , 2021 , e49
Copyright
© Universidad Complutense de Madrid and Colegio Oficial de Psicólogos de Madrid 2021

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Footnotes

Funding Statement: This work was supported by the Ministry of Science and Innovation (Spain) to the project entitled “Narrative tools to reduce prejudice. Effects of similarity, imagined contact, empathy and narrative voice”, held by Juan-José Igartua (Grant Number CSO2015–67611–P).

Conflicts of Interest: None.

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