ALERT: This system is being upgraded on Tuesday December 12. It will not be available
for use for several hours that day while the upgrade is in progress. Deposits to DukeSpace
will be disabled on Monday December 11, so no new items are to be added to the repository
while the upgrade is in progress. Everything should be back to normal by the end of
day, December 12.
Reconsidering Baron and Kenny: Myths and Truths about Mediation Analysis
Abstract
Baron and Kenny's procedure for determining if an independent variable affects a dependent
variable through some mediator is so well known that it is used by authors and requested
by reviewers almost reflexively. Many research projects have been terminated early
in a research program or later in the review process because the data did not conform
to Baron and Kenny's criteria, impeding theoretical development. While the technical
literature has disputed some of Baron and Kenny's tests, this literature has not diffused
to practicing researchers. We present a nontechnical summary of the flaws in the Baron
and Kenny logic, some of which have not been previously noted. We provide a decision
tree and a step-by-step procedure for testing mediation, classifying its type, and
interpreting the implications of findings for theory building and future research.
Type
Other articlePermalink
https://hdl.handle.net/10161/4143Published Version (Please cite this version)
10.1086/651257Citation
Zhao,Xinshu;Lynch,John G., Jr.;Chen,Qimei. 2010. Reconsidering Baron and Kenny: Myths
and Truths about Mediation Analysis. Journal of Consumer Research 37(2): 197-206.
Collections
More Info
Show full item record
Articles written by Duke faculty are made available through the campus open access policy. For more information see: Duke Open Access Policy
Rights for Collection: Scholarly Articles
Works are deposited here by their authors, and represent their research and opinions, not that of Duke University. Some materials and descriptions may include offensive content. More info