Three Essential Analytical Techniques for the Behavioral Marketing Researcher: Median Splits, Mean-Centering, and Mediation Analysis

Three Essential Analytical Techniques for the Behavioral Marketing Researcher: Median Splits, Mean-Centering, and Mediation Analysis reviews several topics that are essential complementary analytics that enable behavioral marketing researchers to thoroughly test theories and hypotheses, and thereby advance their respective literatures and contribute to knowledge bases. The intended audience for this monograph is behaviorally oriented marketers interested in learning more about some core analytical tools of the trade. The authors proceed under the assumption that most consumer behavior researchers have a strong, clear foundation in the understanding and execution of experimentation and the analysis of variance (ANOVA). After an introduction, Section 2 reviews the use of median splits - what they are and when it is it acceptable and completely appropriate and legitimate to use them. Section 3 examines the use of mean-centering when conducting moderated multiple regressions. Section 4 discusses mediation analysis, first describing the basic approach and then covering advanced issues around fitting the model, including structural equations models, multi-item scales, and categorical variables. Section 5 reviews the earlier topics, and makes further recommendations.