New Insights in Power and Power Analysis in Mediation Models

Mediation analysis is commonly used in social-personality psychology to evaluate potential mechanisms of effects. With the recent replicability crisis, researchers are turning to power analysis to help plan studies; however, power analysis for mediation is not implemented in popular software (e.g., G*Power). Our symposium includes two presentations focusing on implementation of power analysis for mediation: (1) describing easy-to-use tools for implementing power analysis (e.g., pwr2ppl R package), and (2) evaluating whether different inferential methods result in similar recommended sample sizes and the role of assumption violations in these differences. Two presenters focus on study characteristics which can affect power: (1) use of the bias-corrected confidence interval and alternatives which better balance power and type I error, and (2) how measurement error on the mediator can impact power and how to correct this issue with latent variable models. Presentations will include applied examples, aimed at a social-personality audience, and provide concrete steps for increasing the validity and replicability of mediation analyses conducted in social-personality research. (Symposium Presented at SPSP 2021)