What Carries a Mediation Process? Configural Analysis of Mediation

Mediation is a process that links a predictor and a criterion via a mediator variable. Mediation can be full or partial. This well-established definition operates at the level of variables even if they are categorical. In this article, two new approaches to the analysis of mediation are proposed. Both of these approaches focus on the analysis of categorical variables. The first involves mediation analysis at the level of configurations instead of variables. Thus, mediation can be incorporated into the arsenal of methods of analysis for person-oriented research. Second, it is proposed that Configural Frequency Analysis (CFA) can be used for both exploration and confirmation of mediation relationships among categorical variables. The implications of using CFA are first that mediation hypotheses can be tested at the level of individual configurations instead of variables. Second, this approach leaves the door open for different types of mediation processes to exist within the same set. Using a data example, it is illustrated that aggregate-level analysis can overlook mediation processes that operate at the level of individual configurations.     

Who Earns More and Why? A Multiple Mediation Model from Personality to Salary

Purpose  

The purpose of this study was to investigate multiple indirect Big Five personality influences on professionals’ annual salary while considering relevant mediators. These are the motivational variables of occupational self-efficacy and career-advancement goals, and the work status variable of contractual work hours. The motivational and work status variables were conceptualized as serial mediators (Big Five → occupational self-efficacy/career-advancement goals → contractual work hours → annual salary).     

Religiosity and Spirituality as Resiliency Resources: Moderation,Mediation, or Moderated Mediation?

A growing body of literature indicates a modestly positive association between religiosity and spirituality as predictors of psychological health (anxiety and depression), suggesting they serve as personal resiliency factors. The purpose of this study was to expand our understanding of the relationships among these constructs. Using Lazarus's Transactional Model of Stress as a theoretical framework, we examined: (a) the extent to which spirituality and religiosity mediated and/or moderated the association between perceived stress and psychological health and (b) whether there was a moderated (religiosity) mediation (spirituality) between stress and health. The Perceived Stress Scale, Daily Spiritual Experiences Scale, Religious Commitment Inventory, and Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale were administered to measure the following constructs: stress, spirituality, religiosity, and psychological health. This study utilized a nonexperimental, quantitative, correlational, cross‐sectional, moderated‐mediation design, and included a convenience sample of 331 research participants. Both spirituality and religiosity moderated stress and health. However, only spirituality partially mediated the relationship. In addition, religiosity did not moderate the mediating effects of spirituality. Overall, this study confirmed the role of both religiosity and spirituality as effective resiliency resources.     

Revealing the Difference: Between Conflict Mediation and Law Enforcement—Living and Working Together as a Conceptual and Methodological Turning Point to Activate Transformation in a Juvenile Criminal Mediation Service

This article aims at proposing the construct of living and working together in organizations as an interpretation and tool proposed in a Juvenile Criminal Mediation Service, in order to highlight how important it was as a turning point in activating the working group's reflexive function as far as their sense of belonging, otherness, culture of diversity, and work subject matter are concerned and start an important transformation process in the very service delivery. Our proposal finds its roots in a follow-up experience regarding the aforementioned service, which has been taking place for almost three years. It was structured in three different phases: a research phase evaluating process and results of the activity that was carried out; a phase of monitoring the mediation practice; a research-action phase in a clinical perspective on the working group's operating mode. The leverage of living and working together in organizations is specifically proposed as far as this last working phase is concerned, lasting approximately ten months.     

Maximum Likelihood Analysis of Linear Mediation Models with Treatment–Mediator Interaction

Psychometrika - This research concerns a mediation model, where the mediator model is linear and the outcome model is also linear but with a treatment–mediator interaction term and a residual...     

Commentary: Are Three Waves of Data Sufficient for Assessing Mediation?

Maxwell, Cole, and Mitchell (2011) demonstrated that simple structural equation models, when used with cross-sectional data, generally produce biased estimates of meditated effects. I extend those results by showing how simple structural equation models can produce biased estimates of meditated effects when used even with longitudinal data. Even with longitudinal data, simple autoregressive structural equation models can imply the existence of indirect effects when only direct effects exist and the existence of direct effects when only indirect effects exist.     

Intergenerational Transmission of Parenting Style and Personality: Direct Influence or Mediation?

In order to examine the relationships between parenting styles and personality traits over generations, a cross-sectional questionnaire study was conducted for fathers and mothers of school-age children of grades 5–9. The parenting styles measured by the Parental Bonding Instrument (PBI) and the personality traits measured by the Temperament and Character Inventory (TCI) were correlated within and between the consecutive generations (the grandparents and the parents for the PBI and the parents and the children for the TCI). A series of structural equation modeling showed that (1) while the parenting styles were transmitted directly from the grandparents to the parents, it was partly mediated by the fathers’ Co-operativeness (C) but not so for the mothers, (2) while the personality traits were transmitted directly from the parents to the children, it was only the fathers’ parenting styles that mediated C, and (3) the parents’ parenting styles had independent effects upon the children’s personality traits.     

Parental Mediation of COVID-19 News and Children’s Emotion Regulation during Lockdown

Journal of Child and Family Studies - The COVID-19 outbreak resulted in a large amount of emotionally charged messaging that is believed to have a tremendous psychological impact, particularly on...     

Theory and the Object: Making Sense of Adorno’s Concept of Mediation

Abstract

This article examines Adorno’s use of the notion of mediation, which at first glance appears to be problematic and aporetic. While the emergence of such a concept marks Adorno’s renewed interest in Hegelian philosophy, and a distancing from Walter Benjamin’s thought, the understanding of mediation should not be reduced to the Hegelian model. This article will argue that Adorno introduces such a concept to explain theory’s necessity and verifiability, as well as the experience of the object. Only by taking these two issues (the mediation between concepts and between subject and object) in their interconnection is it possible to explain the role of mediation in Adorno. I will argue that the idea of ‘constellations’ put forward in the Dialectics furnishes us with a model of mediation that goes beyond its original Hegelian formulation.     

Are You Being Served? The Relationship between School Climate for Service and Teachers' Engagement,Satisfaction, and Intention to Leave: A Moderated Mediation Model

The notion of service has been receiving increasing attention in organizational psychology literature in recent years, due to the client-oriented managerial movement. Yet, little to no attention has been paid to the service notion in educational psychology despite its high relevance to educational settings, given the pressure to be more service-oriented and possess a client-focused state of mind. The present study explores the notion of service in school domains by examining the joint effects of climate for service and the internal service in schools on teachers' work attitudes: work engagement, job satisfaction, and intention to leave their work. The notion of climate for service emphasizes the school's attitude of teachers as service providers to its clients (students and their parents); internal climate emphasizes the school's attitude of providing service to its teaching staff. The study was conducted via a sample of 423 teachers from 30 different schools in Israel. We hypothesized that the indirect relationship between the climate for service and teachers' job satisfaction and intention to leave work would be mediated by teacher work engagement. Our findings supported this hypothesis. Moreover, this indirect relationship via teacher work engagement was demonstrated most strongly when the internal service quality received was high, providing teachers with the capability to deliver what the service climate motivates them to do. Therefore, service-oriented resources—both climate for service and internal service—may be crucial in affecting teachers work attitudes and should be specifically targeted by principals and other educational decision makers.     

Does Being Mindful of Your Character Strengths Enhance Psychological Wellbeing? A Longitudinal Mediation Analysis

Mindfulness and character strengths significantly contribute to psychological wellbeing in various contexts. Empirical studies further imply that mindfulness-based interventions can cultivate a wide range of strengths, which in turn facilitate the wellbeing of individuals. However, no study has examined this hypothesis. The current study underpins this argument with empirical pieces of evidence from cross-sectional (Study 1) and longitudinal (Study 2) data by investigating the relationship between character strengths, mindfulness, and psychological wellbeing among community (n = 375) and undergraduate populations (n = 229). Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire, Brief Strengths Scale, and Flourishing Scale were administrated. As hypothesized, the results of the cross-sectional investigation confirm that mindfulness and character strengths are conceptually related constructs with significant contributions to psychological wellbeing. Temperance Strength and Interpersonal Strength further mediate the relationship between Observing facet of mindfulness and Flourishing. Furthermore, investigating the relationship among mindfulness, strengths, and psychological wellbeing using Longitudinal Mediation Modeling reveals a clear picture. After the baseline of the outcomes is controlled, the 6-month longitudinal study indicates that the past level of Observing facet of mindfulness can predict the present level of Temperance Strength, which in turn predicts future Flourishing. These results highlight the importance of Observing facet in mindfulness and Temperance Strength, which provide another possible explanation on how and why mindfulness can affect psychological wellbeing among general populations. Future Strength-based Mindfulness Intervention Programs can be developed based on these findings.     

How do Housing Subsidies Improve Quality of Life Among Homeless Adults? A Mediation Analysis

Supported housing, combining rent subsidies with intensive case management, is associated with improvements in quality of life of homeless adults, but factors mediating their impact on quality of life have not been studied. Twelve‐month outcome data from a randomized trial of the Housing and Urban Development‐ Veterans Affairs Supported Housing program (HUD‐VASH) showed that access to a housing rent subsidy plus intensive case management (ICM) was associated with greater improvement in subjective quality of life than ICM alone. Multiple mediation analyses were applied to identify variables that significantly mediated the relationship between receipt of housing voucher and improvements in quality of life. Significant mediating covariates were those whose 95% bias‐corrected confidence intervals, when added to the model predicting improvement in quality of life, did not overlap zero. Increases in the number of days housed, size of social network, and availability of emotional support appear to mediate improvement in quality of life and account for 71% of the benefit attributable to having a rent subsidy. Improvement in subjective quality of life though housing subsidies is mediated by gains in both material and psychosocial factors. Mediating factors deserve special attention in supported housing services.     

Guiding Young Children’s Digital Media Use: SES-Differences in Mediation Concerns and Competence

Previous research about parents’ mediation of their young children’s (digital) media use has predominantly focused on the different types, determinants, and effectiveness of parental mediation strategies. Although research on parents’ perceived mediation concerns and competences is scarce, it is known that, compared to mothers and high-educated parents, fathers and low-educated parents experience greater insecurity (i.e., higher concern and lower competence) when applying media mediation. Based on Bourdieu’s theory of social capital it may be expected that—in addition to educational level—marital status and family income predict parents’ perceived mediation concerns and competences: Family demographics may predict parents’ media proficiency and adoption of new media technologies and these media ecological factors may, in turn, affect perceived concerns and competences. To test this assumption, survey data were collected among 1029 parents of children between the ages of 1 to 9 years. We found that parents’ basic media proficiency was lower in low income, low educated, and single-parent families, whereas parents’ advanced media proficiency was only lower in low educated and single-parent families. As expected, parents’ ease of active co-use was positively associated with parents’ basic proficiency, ease of restrictive mediation by basic and advanced proficiency, and ease of imposing technical restrictions by advanced media proficiency. Parents’ perceived mediation concerns were, however, unrelated to parents’ media proficiency. Also, as expected, low educated parents were less inclined to adopt new media technologies. Adoption of new media was negatively related to perceived mediation concerns, yet did not predict parents’ perceived competence.     

Parents’ Marital Status and Child Physical Abuse Potential: The Mediation of Depression Symptoms

Informed by a social interactional framework of stress and parenting, the aim of this study was to examine the mediating effect of depression symptoms on the association between parents’ marital status (married and divorced parents) and child physical abuse potential, in a Portuguese community sample. It was hypothesized that the possible observed differences between divorced and married parents in the child physical abuse potential would be explained by their depression symptoms. Parents (N?=?892) were assessed in their marital status, severity of depression symptoms and child physical abuse potential. Results showed that, when compared with married parents, divorced parents had higher child physical abuse potential. However, parents’ depression symptomatology was found as a mediator of the effect of marital status differences on child physical abuse potential. The influence of the status of divorced parents on the increase of child physical abuse potential was explained by the increase of the parents’ depression symptoms. This finding suggested that parents’ divorced status had no longer an effect on child physical abuse potential when parents’ depression symptomatology was tested as a mediator variable. The present mediation model explained 47?% of the variability in the child physical abuse potential score. Practical implications of these findings for prevention and psychological intervention are also discussed.     

Chronic Illness and Child Behavior Problems in Low-SES Families: The Mediation of Caregivers’ Mental Health

Journal of Child and Family Studies - Childhood chronic illness is associated with deleterious effects on caregivers’ mental health and children’s socio-emotional development. This...     

Mediation of Mothers’ Anxiety and Parenting in Children’s Behavior Problems during COVID-19

The outbreak of COVID-19 is affecting the lives of millions of families around the world. The current study was carried out in Israel, following the pandemic’s initial outbreak and during the resulting enforced quarantine, confining parents and children to their homes. A sample of 141 Israeli mothers with at least one child between the ages of 3 and 12 (M?=?6.92, SD?=?2.55) participated as volunteers. About half the sample (50.7%) consisted of girls. Most mothers were cohabiting with a spouse (93%). Mothers completed online questionnaires about their perceptions about the health and economic threats of COVID-19, availability of social support, their anxiety symptoms, hostile/coercive and supportive/engaged parenting behavior, and their children’s behavior problems. Results showed expected significant associations between the mothers’ reports about having little social support, their anxiety symptoms, hostile/coercive and supportive/engaged parenting behavior, and children’s externalizing problems. Likewise, expected significant associations were found between mothers’ perceptions about the health and economic threats of COVID-19, their anxiety symptoms, hostile/coercive parenting behavior, and children’s internalizing and externalizing problems. Importantly, maternal anxiety and hostile/coercive parenting behavior mediated the associations between lack of support, negative perceptions about the health and economic threats of COVID-19, and children’s behavior problems. These findings stress the importance of mothers’ mental health and parenting behaviors for children’s socioemotional adaptation in the context of COVID-19. Implications of the findings for family interventions intended to help parents and children at this time are suggested.

     

Generalizability in the Mediation Effects of Parental Expectations on Children’s Cognitive Ability and Self-concept

Previous research involving Hong Kong Chinese parents and their children showed that parental home involvement, beliefs of their children’s cognitive ability and their expectations for academic achievement mediated the relationship between their children’s cognitive ability and school achievement scores. This mediation effect was interpreted as the cognitive-affect model of academic achievement. The current research confirms the generalizability of the findings and tests the hypothesis that there are cultural differences in the mediation effects with the inclusion of non-Chinese students and their parents as a comparison group. The responses from 103 Chinese speaking (CS) and 163 non-Chinese speaking (NCS) primary students and parents from two schools in Hong Kong were analyzed using structural equation modeling. Student measures included self-concept, cognitive ability and academic achievement in mathematics, English and Chinese. Parent measures included home involvement, beliefs of their child’s cognitive ability and expectations of academic success. Initial model showed that parental expectations mediate the link between cognitive ability and academic achievement for both CS and NCS groups, with parental involvement predicting English achievement for only the NCS group. After the inclusion of academic self-concept, the model showed that CS parental expectations also mediate the link between self-concept and academic achievement. However, the model showed that the parental expectations of NCS play a lesser role in mediating the link between academic self-concept and their children’s academic achievement. Despite the differences, the results provide evidence for the generalizability of the cognitive-affect model.     

Corporate Social Responsibility,Employee–Company Identification,and Organizational Commitment: Mediation by Employee Engagement

Contrary to the theory and research on employee engagement in the western countries, less consideration has been given to the importance of employee engagement in Asian countries wherein its need is felt more. As more and more companies in Asia realize the importance of a productive workforce, this research examines the mediating role of employee engagement in the relationships of corporate social responsibility (CSR), employee–company identification (E–C) and organizational commitment (OC). Structural analysis of 290 online responses of employees working for various Indian and foreign information technology enabled services (ITES) companies in India, confirms the presence of partial mediation by employee engagement in between its antecedents (CSR and E–C) and its consequence (OC). The proposed model was found to be a good fit. The study provides empirical support to the argument that CSR and E–C are distant antecedents of OC. The results may encourage managers of ITES companies to consider CSR as an investment rather than an expense.     

Severity of Children’s ADHD Symptoms and Parenting Stress: A Multiple Mediation Model of Self-Regulation

The goal of the current study was to determine the extent to which the perceived self-regulation deficits across behavioral, cognitive, and emotional domains seen in children with ADHD explain the association between the severity of ADHD symptoms and parenting stress. Participants for this study included 80 children (mean age = 10 years, 9 months) with a DSM-IV diagnosis of ADHD confirmed by a comprehensive clinical diagnostic assessment. Parents reported their own stress levels as well as the severity of their children’s ADHD symptoms, aggression, emotional lability, and executive functioning difficulties. Results indicated that the severity of children’s hyperactivity/impulsivity symptoms but not their inattention related to parenting stress. Multiple mediational analyses indicated that the association between hyperactivity/impulsivity and parenting stress was explained by children’s perceived comorbid aggression levels, emotional lability, and executive functioning difficulties. No significant differences in the strength of the mediators were found. The current study provides initial data showing that the perceived impairments in children’s self-regulation across emotional, cognitive, and behavioral domains are what parents report as stressful, not simply the severity of ADHD symptoms. Due to the cross-sectional nature of this study and shared variance from relying solely on parent report, it will be critical for future research to replicate our findings using longitudinal and multi-informant data such as teacher reports and standardized assessments.     

“Think Your Blackest Thoughts and Darken Them:” Judicial Mediation of Large Money Damage Disputes

This paper considers a much neglected, but distinctive and increasingly prevalent kind of mediation work: the mediation of large money damage cases by acting and former judges. The research finds that judicial mediation is a law-infused procedure different from forms of mediation in which the stuff of law and lawyers' work is only marginally relevant, if at all. The study details how judge-mediators draw on their knowledge of the law, technically and as a matter of professional practice, to make legally persuasive arguments that critically evaluate each side's case and what is likely to occur at future points, adversely altering the litigants' understanding of the risks and costs of failing to settle and thus facilitating dispute resolution. The study was developed and pursued as an ethnographic and ethnomethodological study of work.