IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/somere/v1y1972i2p175-186.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Indirect Effects in Path Analysis

Author

Listed:
  • John M. Finney

    (Washington State University)

Abstract

The indirect effect in path analysis has been defined as equal to the difference between the correlation coefficient and the path coefficient. This definition has led to ambiguous and inconsistent interpretations of indirect effects across various applications. This paper shows that what was earlier defined as the indirect effect may, in fact, be composed of three parts: (1) the indirect effect, (2) spurious association due to joint dependence on a prior variable, and (3) association due to the correlation between predetermined variables. We argue for a redefinition of the indirect effect so that only those paths which can be traced through intervening variables are included in the indirect effect term. Indirect effects can then be interpreted consistently across all applications as being indirect causal effects.

Suggested Citation

  • John M. Finney, 1972. "Indirect Effects in Path Analysis," Sociological Methods & Research, , vol. 1(2), pages 175-186, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:somere:v:1:y:1972:i:2:p:175-186
    DOI: 10.1177/004912417200100202
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/004912417200100202
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/004912417200100202?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Zou, Shuzhen & Wang, Hui & Wang, Xiaojiao & Zhou, Sha & Li, Xue & Feng, Yongzhong, 2016. "Application of experimental design techniques in the optimization of the ultrasonic pretreatment time and enhancement of methane production in anaerobic co-digestion," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 179(C), pages 191-202.
    2. James Christenson & Don Dillman, 1974. "An exploratory analysis of select predictors of concern for law and order," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 1(2), pages 217-228, September.
    3. Zou, Shuzhen & Kang, Di, 2018. "Relationship between anaerobic digestion characteristics and biogas production under composting pretreatment," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 125(C), pages 485-494.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:somere:v:1:y:1972:i:2:p:175-186. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.