Commentary: Practical implications of theoretical results for causal mediation analysis
Mediation analysis has been extensively applied in psychological and other social science research. A number of methodologists have recently developed a formal theoretical framework for mediation analysis from a modern causal inference perspective. In Imai, Keele, and Tingley (2010), we have offered...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | en_US |
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American Psychological Association (APA)
2015
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| Online Access: | http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/99740 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8079-7675 |
| _version_ | 1826194812891561984 |
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| author | Imai, Kosuke Keele, Luke Tingley, Dustin Yamamoto, Teppei |
| author2 | Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Political Science |
| author_facet | Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Political Science Imai, Kosuke Keele, Luke Tingley, Dustin Yamamoto, Teppei |
| author_sort | Imai, Kosuke |
| collection | MIT |
| description | Mediation analysis has been extensively applied in psychological and other social science research. A number of methodologists have recently developed a formal theoretical framework for mediation analysis from a modern causal inference perspective. In Imai, Keele, and Tingley (2010), we have offered such an approach to causal mediation analysis that formalizes identification, estimation, and sensitivity analysis in a single framework. This approach has been used by a number of substantive researchers, and in subsequent work we have also further extended it to more complex settings and developed new research designs. In an insightful article, Pearl (2014) proposed an alternative approach that is based on a set of assumptions weaker than ours. In this comment, we demonstrate that the theoretical differences between our identification assumptions and his alternative conditions are likely to be of little practical relevance in the substantive research settings faced by most psychologists and other social scientists. We also show that our proposed estimation algorithms can be easily applied in the situations discussed in Pearl (2014). The methods discussed in this comment and many more are implemented via mediation, an open-source software (Tingley, Yamamoto, Hirose, Keele, & Imai, 2013). |
| first_indexed | 2024-09-23T10:02:12Z |
| format | Article |
| id | mit-1721.1/99740 |
| institution | Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| language | en_US |
| last_indexed | 2024-09-23T10:02:12Z |
| publishDate | 2015 |
| publisher | American Psychological Association (APA) |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | mit-1721.1/997402022-09-30T18:27:54Z Commentary: Practical implications of theoretical results for causal mediation analysis Comment on Pearl: Practical implications of theoretical results for causal mediation analysis Imai, Kosuke Keele, Luke Tingley, Dustin Yamamoto, Teppei Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Political Science Yamamoto, Teppei Yamamoto, Teppei Mediation analysis has been extensively applied in psychological and other social science research. A number of methodologists have recently developed a formal theoretical framework for mediation analysis from a modern causal inference perspective. In Imai, Keele, and Tingley (2010), we have offered such an approach to causal mediation analysis that formalizes identification, estimation, and sensitivity analysis in a single framework. This approach has been used by a number of substantive researchers, and in subsequent work we have also further extended it to more complex settings and developed new research designs. In an insightful article, Pearl (2014) proposed an alternative approach that is based on a set of assumptions weaker than ours. In this comment, we demonstrate that the theoretical differences between our identification assumptions and his alternative conditions are likely to be of little practical relevance in the substantive research settings faced by most psychologists and other social scientists. We also show that our proposed estimation algorithms can be easily applied in the situations discussed in Pearl (2014). The methods discussed in this comment and many more are implemented via mediation, an open-source software (Tingley, Yamamoto, Hirose, Keele, & Imai, 2013). 2015-11-09T12:39:07Z 2015-11-09T12:39:07Z 2014-12 Article http://purl.org/eprint/type/JournalArticle 1939-1463 1082-989X http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/99740 Imai, Kosuke, Luke Keele, Dustin Tingley, and Teppei Yamamoto. “Comment on Pearl: Practical Implications of Theoretical Results for Causal Mediation Analysis.” Psychological Methods 19, no. 4 (2014): 482–487. https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8079-7675 en_US http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/met0000021 Psychological Methods Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/ application/pdf American Psychological Association (APA) Yamamoto |
| spellingShingle | Imai, Kosuke Keele, Luke Tingley, Dustin Yamamoto, Teppei Commentary: Practical implications of theoretical results for causal mediation analysis |
| title | Commentary: Practical implications of theoretical results for causal mediation analysis |
| title_full | Commentary: Practical implications of theoretical results for causal mediation analysis |
| title_fullStr | Commentary: Practical implications of theoretical results for causal mediation analysis |
| title_full_unstemmed | Commentary: Practical implications of theoretical results for causal mediation analysis |
| title_short | Commentary: Practical implications of theoretical results for causal mediation analysis |
| title_sort | commentary practical implications of theoretical results for causal mediation analysis |
| url | http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/99740 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8079-7675 |
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