Hello,
I was reading a paper "Sociable and Prosocial Dimensions of Social Competence
in Chinese Children: Common and Unique Contributions to Social, Academic, and Psychological Adjustment" by Chen et al 2000 (developmental psychology 36(3)), and was a little unsure how to interpret one of thei analyses.
They have depression measured at two time points, and seem to regress time 2 depression onto time 1 depression and other predictor variables, including a prosociality variable. So i'd normally intrepret the effect of prosociality in this model as predicting the change in depression over time.
They then include an interaction term between time 1 depression and prosociality, which is significant. Looking at simple slopes, prosociality is more related to time 2 depression for those kids who are more depressed at time 1.
Its this interaction effect i'm struggling with. Is it still the change in depression from time 1 to time 2 that is being predicted by this interaction effect (as is the case if we're just looking at the prosociality predictor), or can I no longer interpret this effect as being prospective (i.e., telling me something about the direction of the relationship), since the time 1 depression variable whose variance is being removed from time 2 depression also forms part of the interaction effect.
I've never seen this done before in a multiple regression. Any assistance in what to make of this effect would be greatly appreciated. Thanks
I was reading a paper "Sociable and Prosocial Dimensions of Social Competence
in Chinese Children: Common and Unique Contributions to Social, Academic, and Psychological Adjustment" by Chen et al 2000 (developmental psychology 36(3)), and was a little unsure how to interpret one of thei analyses.
They have depression measured at two time points, and seem to regress time 2 depression onto time 1 depression and other predictor variables, including a prosociality variable. So i'd normally intrepret the effect of prosociality in this model as predicting the change in depression over time.
They then include an interaction term between time 1 depression and prosociality, which is significant. Looking at simple slopes, prosociality is more related to time 2 depression for those kids who are more depressed at time 1.
Its this interaction effect i'm struggling with. Is it still the change in depression from time 1 to time 2 that is being predicted by this interaction effect (as is the case if we're just looking at the prosociality predictor), or can I no longer interpret this effect as being prospective (i.e., telling me something about the direction of the relationship), since the time 1 depression variable whose variance is being removed from time 2 depression also forms part of the interaction effect.
I've never seen this done before in a multiple regression. Any assistance in what to make of this effect would be greatly appreciated. Thanks
