Interaction Models
Specification and Interpretation

A comprehensive and unified introduction to interaction models and how they can be used to test conditional claims.

William Roberts Clark (Author), Matt Golder (Author)

9781108416719, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 16 November 2023

612 pages
23.5 x 16 x 4 cm, 1.043 kg

The radical interdependence between humans who live together makes virtually all human behavior conditional. The behavior of individuals is conditional upon the expectations of those around them, and those expectations are conditional upon the rules (institutions) and norms (culture) constructed to monitor, reward, and punish different behaviors. As a result, nearly all hypotheses about humans are conditional – conditional upon the resources they possess, the institutions they inhabit, or the cultural practices that tell them how to behave. Interaction Models provides a stand-alone, accessible overview of how interaction models, which are frequently used across the social and natural sciences, capture the intuition behind conditional claims and context dependence. It also addresses the simple specification and interpretation errors that are, unfortunately, commonplace. By providing a comprehensive and unified introduction to the use and critical evaluation of interaction models, this book shows how they can be used to test theoretically-derived claims of conditionality.

1. Introduction
Part I. The Fundamentals: 2. Theories and their conditional implications
3. Interaction model specification
4. Interpreting quantities of interest: effects, predicted values and measures of uncertainty
5. Three substantive applications: interpretation and presentation
Part II. More Complex Forms of Conditionality: 6. When we have more than one modifying variable
7. When an independent variable interacts with itself
Part III. Interactions and Limited Dependent Variables: 8. Interactions and dichotomous dependent variables
9. Interactions and ordered dependent variables
10. Interactions and unordered dependent variables
Appendices.

Subject Areas: Research methods: general [GPS]