Estimating and testing mediation and moderation in within-subject designs.

TLDR

Analyses to detect mediation and moderation of treatment effects are increasingly common in psychology, yet systematic procedures for within‑subject designs remain undeveloped. The authors aim to develop an analytic approach for mediation and moderation when treatment varies within participants. They propose using ordinary least squares estimation to address these within‑subject mediation and moderation questions.

Abstract

Analyses designed to detect mediation and moderation of treatment effects are increasingly prevalent in research in psychology. The mediation question concerns the processes that produce a treatment effect. The moderation question concerns factors that affect the magnitude of that effect. Although analytic procedures have been reasonably well worked out in the case in which the treatment varies between participants, no systematic procedures for examining mediation and moderation have been developed in the case in which the treatment varies within participants. The authors present an analytic approach to these issues using ordinary least squares estimation.