Confused what statistical test to use

[becca45]

Hi,

I want to see if a relationship between age and anxiety can be explained by a difference in coping styles.

The coping style is either problem focused or emotion focused and people will have a score for each. The scores come from the same scale, it just has two subscales instead of a total score.

There is a negative correlation between age and anxiety that is statistically significant.

There is also statistically significant correlations between age and problem focused coping (slightly positive correlation) and between age and emotion focused coping (negative correlation).

How can I put it all into a model to see if the correlation between age and anxiety can be explained by differences in coping styles.

I was thinking of a mediation model but I am unsure how it would work as I have two different kinds of coping.

I hope that makes sense

Thanks for any advice

 

[royer11]

I did not understand, what are your study variables? Have I read and it seems that there are many or are they sub-scores?

 

[noetsi]

What is your dependent variable. Age or Anxiety. How are they measured.
I think coping styles is a moderating variable which can be addressed by generating an interaction effect.

So if age is the dependent variable =Y (measured on an interval scale)
and Anxiety is the predictor =X1
and coping style is a moderating effect X2

then you run linear regression Y= constant + X1 + X2.

If you think there is an interaction between Anxiety and coping style (they influence the impact of the other variable on Age) then you create a new terms that is anxiety times coping style

Y = constant + x1 +X2 +X1*X2

You can then estimate and evaluate the effects. If you do this look to see if the linear assumptions are met