Analyzing Statistical Mediation with Multiple Informants: A New Approach with an Application in Clinical Psychology

Dealing with missing data in multi-informant studies: A comparison of approaches

Multi-informant studies are popular in social and behavioral science. However, their data analyses are challenging because data from different informants carry both shared and unique information and are often incomplete. Using Monte Carlo Simulation, the current study compares three approaches that can be used to analyze incomplete multi-informant data when there is a distinction between reference and nonreference informants. These approaches include a two-method measurement model for planned missing data (2MM-PMD), treating nonreference informants' reports as auxiliary variables with the full-information maximum likelihood method or multiple imputation, and listwise deletion. The result suggests that 2MM-PMD, when correctly specified and data are missing at random, has the best overall performance among the examined approaches regarding point estimates, type I error rates, and statistical power. In addition, it is also more robust to data that are not missing at random.

Adolescents' internalizing symptoms predict dating violence victimization and perpetration 2 years later

The aim of this longitudinal study was to examine bidirectional associations of adolescents' internalizing symptoms with dating violence victimization and perpetration. We conducted secondary analyses of the Québec Longitudinal Study of Child Development data (n = 974). Each adolescent completed items from the Conflict Tactics Scale (at ages 15 and 17 years) to assess psychological, physical, and sexual dating violence victimization and perpetration in the past 12 months. Adolescents' symptoms of depression and general anxiety in the past 12 months were self-reported (at ages 15 and 17 years) using The Mental Health and Social Inadaptation Assessment for Adolescents. There were concurrent associations of adolescents' internalizing symptoms with dating violence victimization and perpetration. Internalizing symptoms at age 15 years were positively associated with dating violence victimization and perpetration 2 years later in both males and females, even after adjusting for baseline characteristics. However, neither dating violence victimization nor perpetration at age 15 years was associated with internalizing symptoms 2 years later. For males and females, internalizing symptoms put adolescents at risk for future dating violence victimization and perpetration. Interventions that target internalizing symptoms may have the potential to decrease subsequent dating violence.

Maternal depressive symptoms and children's academic performance: sex differences in the mediating role of school experiences

BACKGROUND

Maternal depressive symptoms (MDSs) are negatively associated with children's academic performance, with stronger effects sometimes reported in boys. However, few studies have tested the mechanisms of this association. We examined the mediating role of school engagement and peer victimization in this association and tested for sex differences.

METHODS

Participants were 1173 families from a population-based longitudinal Canadian study. MDSs were self-reported annually using the Centre for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale (child's age: 5 months to 5 years). Data on mediators (peer victimization, cognitive, behavioral, and emotional school engagement) were reported annually from ages 6-10 by multiple informants including children, parents, and teachers using items from validated scales. Mathematics, reading, and writing exam scores at age 12 were obtained from standardized exams administered by Québec's Ministry of Education and Teaching. Structural equation modeling was used to test mediation by school experiences in boys and girls.

RESULTS

Exposure to MDSs was negatively associated with mathematics, reading, and writing scores in girls and with mathematics only in boys. Cognitive and behavioral engagement significantly mediated the association between MDSs and mathematics, reading, and writing scores in girls. There were no significant mediators for boys.

CONCLUSIONS

Prevention and intervention strategies aiming to improve school engagement might be beneficial for daughters of mothers experiencing depressive symptoms. Further research is needed to replicate these findings and to identify the mechanisms explaining this association in boys.

Revealing Unconscious Consumer Reactions to Advertisements That Include Visual Metaphors. A Neurophysiological Experiment

The main challenge of advertising is to catch consumers' attention and evoke in them positive attitudes to consequently achieve product preference and higher purchase intentions. In modern advertising, visual metaphors are widely used due to their effects such as improving advertising recall, enhancing persuasiveness, and generating consumers' positive attitudes. Previous research has pointed out the existence of an "inverted U-curve" that describes a positive relationship between the conceptual complexity of metaphors and consumers' positive reactions to them, which ends where complexity outweighs comprehension. Despite the dominance of visual metaphors in modern advertising, academic research on this topic has been relatively sparse. The inverted U-curve pattern has been validated regarding ad appreciation, ad liking, and purchase intention by using declarative methods. However, at present, there is no evidence of consumers' neurophysiological responses to visual metaphors included in advertising. Given this gap, the aim of this research is to assess consumer neurophysiological responses to print advertisements that include visual metaphors, using neuroscience-based techniques. Forty-three participants (22W-21M) were exposed to 28 stimuli according to three levels of visual complexity, while their reactions were recorded with an electroencephalogram (EEG), eye tracking (ET), and galvanic skin response (GSR). The results indicated that, regardless of metaphor type, ads with metaphors evoke more positive reactions than non-metaphor ads. EEG results revealed a positive relationship between cognitive load and conceptual complexity that is not mediated by comprehension. This suggests that the cognitive load index could be a suitable indicator of complexity, as it reflects the amount of cognitive resources needed to process stimuli. ET results showed significant differences in the time dedicated to exploring the ads; however, comprehension doesn't mediate this relationship. Moreover, no cognitive load was detected from GSR. ET and GSR results suggest that neither methodology is a suitable measure of cognitive load in the case of visual metaphors. Instead, it seems that they are more related to the attention and/or emotion devoted to the stimuli. Our empirical analysis reveals the importance of using neurophysiological measures to analyze the appropriate use of visual metaphors and to find out how to maximize their impact on advertising effectiveness.