Latent interactions in Bayesian SEM PreviousNext
Mplus Discussion > Structural Equation Modeling >
Message/Author
 'Alim Beveridge posted on Sunday, January 12, 2014 - 10:23 pm
Dear Linda and Bengt,

I am using BSEM to estimate a model with latent interactions. It seems the built-in method for latent interactions (LMS) described in the Mplus manual (Example 5.13) will not work with ESTIMATOR= Bayes. Please correct me if I'm wrong but I get the following error:

*** ERROR in MODEL command
Interaction variables are not allowed with ESTIMATOR=BAYES.

Can you recommend another way to do latent interactions in BSEM? Would you recommend the unconstrained method by Marsh, Wen & Hau (2004, 2006)?
 Bengt O. Muthen posted on Monday, January 13, 2014 - 8:43 am
Yes, we haven't gotten to XWITH for Bayes yet.

I am not in a position to make a recommendation on alternatives.
 'Alim Beveridge posted on Friday, January 17, 2014 - 8:54 am
Hello Bengt & Linda,

I tries an approach to estimating a latent interaction using Bayesian estimation. This approach requires specifying a single non-linear constraint, following this example (code snippet is from Coenders, Batista & Saris 2008):

model:
eta1 by y1@1;
eta1 by y2* (p1);
eta2 by y3@1;
eta2 by y4* (p2);
eta3 by y1y3@1;
eta3 by y2y4* (p3);

model constraint:
p3=p2*p1;

I get the following error:
*** FATAL ERROR
THIS MODEL CONSTRAINT IS NOT AVAILABLE WITH BAYES ESTIMATION.

However, I was able to do the following in Bayesian estimation to test an indirect effect following an example in the manual:
NEW(indirect1 indirect2);
indirect1 = a*b1;
indirect2 = a*b2;

Am I doing something wrong? or are non-linear constraints not supported with Bayesian estimation?
If not, is there another approach?
Another posts mentions phantom variables but I don't know what that is and can't find anything about this term in the manual.

Thanks fore your help,
'Alim
 Linda K. Muthen posted on Friday, January 17, 2014 - 8:57 am
Only NEW parameters are available with BAYES.
 'Alim Beveridge posted on Saturday, January 18, 2014 - 4:43 am
Thanks. can you explain about phantom variables please or suggest where to read about this?
mentioned here: http://www.statmodel.com/discussion/messages/11/7736.html?1310007137
 Bengt O. Muthen posted on Saturday, January 18, 2014 - 3:18 pm
Google a Psychometrika article by Rindskopf.
 Tibor Zin posted on Thursday, December 06, 2018 - 4:19 am
Dear Dr. Muthen,

I would like to ask a question about how to inspect the effect of IV on DV on different levels of moderating variable(Johnson-Neyman technique) using Bayesian estimator. Would it be correct approach to consider the value -1 as a minimum, 0 as a medium, and 1 as a maximum value?

Thank you!
 Bengt O. Muthen posted on Thursday, December 06, 2018 - 1:36 pm
Typically, you use 1 SD below and 1 SD above the mean for the moderator. Or, the 20th and 80th percentiles.
 Tibor Zin posted on Saturday, December 08, 2018 - 11:04 pm
Thank you for the answer, Dr. Muthen. Please, could you tell me how to obtain SD and mean of a latent variable using Bayesian estimator or 20th and 80th percentiles? I know that the question may be trivial but I do not know how to proceed.
 Bengt O. Muthen posted on Sunday, December 09, 2018 - 1:57 pm
TECH4 gives you the mean and variance of a latent variable. The latent variables are assume to be normally distributed, so you can get the percentiles from a standard normal distribution table (subtracting the mean and dividing by the SD).
 Tibor Zin posted on Monday, December 10, 2018 - 1:20 am
Thank you for the advice. The problem is that when I use ML estimator, the model is not correctly estimated. When I use Bayesian estimator, TECH4 output is unavailable.
My goal was to estimate an interaction between two latent variables, type = random and algorithm = integration.
Please, do you know what could be a problem or whether there is another way how to approach this problem?
 Bengt O. Muthen posted on Monday, December 10, 2018 - 5:06 pm
Send your ML and Bayes output that you have questions about to Mplus Support along with your license number.
 Freya Glendinning posted on Thursday, February 28, 2019 - 8:31 am
Dear Dr Muthen,

I am having some difficulty using BAYES estimator in a latent moderation analysis.

Of course I cannot use the DEFINE command to create a latent interaction of the X and W factors...

Could you please point me in the right direction to specify such a model...

Many thanks in advance
 Bengt O. Muthen posted on Thursday, February 28, 2019 - 1:38 pm
Bayes XWITH was introduced in Mplus Version 8.2 last November.
 Freya Glendinning posted on Saturday, May 11, 2019 - 5:32 am
Hello,

I am trying to use BAYES XWITH but I am unsure how to define the interaction because the intearction variable e.g., inter1| is not availabe.

Thanks in advance,
 Bengt O. Muthen posted on Saturday, May 11, 2019 - 6:50 am
If you say

f1f2 | f1 XWITH f2;

you can then regress a variable on f1f2:

y on f1 f2 f1f2;
Back to top
Add Your Message Here
Post:
Username: Posting Information:
This is a private posting area. Only registered users and moderators may post messages here.
Password:
Options: Enable HTML code in message
Automatically activate URLs in message
Action: