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Multiple Mediation: Intepretation of sig. total indirect effect with insig. specific indirect effects

Posted: Wed Apr 10, 2019 10:43 am
by fkreitne
Hi together,

I am trying to conduct a multiple mediation analysis and hhave now the result of a significant total indirect effect but only insignificant specific indirect effects for all mediators. I don't know how to interpret these results. According to Carrión, Nitzl and Roldán (2017) in "Partial Least Squares Path Modeling", a mediator effect only occurs if one of the specific indirect effects is significant in a multi mediator model. But i don't know how i should interpret the significant total indirect effect. Any ideas?

Best regards
Fabian

Re: Multiple Mediation: Intepretation of sig. total indirect effect with insig. specific indirect effects

Posted: Sat Apr 13, 2019 1:35 pm
by jmbecker
It is an indication that there seems to be some form of mediation via your mediators in addition to the direct effect.
However, you cannot establish mediation via any of your particular mediators. Individual mediators seem to have only very weak (or no) effects. Currently you cannot tell likely because you have not sufficient enough sample size to find the small effect sizes to become significant. What is your sample size?