"Phantom" Latents in Mplus PreviousNext
Mplus Discussion > Structural Equation Modeling >
Message/Author
 Jeremy Miles posted on Saturday, November 27, 2004 - 12:31 am
Hello,

I was trying to run a model which had what Hayduk has called Phantom latent variables - these are latent variables that are unrelated to all other variables, and have no effect on the model. In other programs, I can just declare them, however in Mplus, this isn't possible (as I understand it).

If I use a statement such as:

phant by age @0;
phant@1;

I get model identification errors. Is there any other way to do this?

Thanks,

JM
 bmuthen posted on Saturday, November 27, 2004 - 8:00 am
Phantom variables work fine. Your statements are correct, so there must be something else going on. Please send input, output and data to support@statmodel.com.
 Jeremy Miles posted on Saturday, November 27, 2004 - 8:14 am
Ah!

Sorry, I made a silly mistake.

Thanks for the quick response.

JM
 Hallie Bregman posted on Monday, June 18, 2012 - 1:41 pm
Hi,

I am attemptint to examine mediation using an APIM, specifying "k's" as phantom variables. However, I receive the NO CONVERGENCE error message when I attempt to run my model.

My phantoms are specified:
Pa1 by YBAL*-1 (ka1);
Pa2 by PBAL*-1 (ka2);

This has worked for me in the past, but will not converge (despite increasing iterations) for this model. Any suggestions? Thanks very much!
 Bengt O. Muthen posted on Monday, June 18, 2012 - 9:11 pm
Please send the 2 outputs to Support - what worked and this one that didn't work.

Also, please fill me in on why you use phantom variables, what APIMs are, and what "k's" are.
 AT Jothees posted on Friday, February 23, 2018 - 2:08 am
HI,

I am performing multi group multiple cohort analysis with four cohorts observed in 6 time points. For one of my cohort group, there are no observations during the time point 1 and 2.

Therefore, I created a phantom latent variable and specified a random manifest variable of my choice. But when I run the model I still getting the following error message.

*** WARNING
Data set contains unknown or missing values for GROUPING.

Could you please tell me whether any reference from mplus handbook on how to create a phantom variable?

Many thanks in advance.

Regards J
 Bengt O. Muthen posted on Friday, February 23, 2018 - 9:35 am
See our FAQ

Different number of variables in different groups
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