Abstract
From the Editors: This is one in a series of statistical guidelines designed to highlight common statistical considerations in behavioral medicine research. The goal was to briefly discuss appropriate ways to analyze and present data in the International Journal of Behavioral Medicine (IJBM). Collectively, the series will culminate in a set of basic statistical guidelines to be adopted by IJBM and integrated into the journal’s official Instructions for Authors and also to serve as an independent resource. If you have ideas for a future topic, please email the Statistical Editor, Suzanne Segerstrom at segerstrom@uky.edu.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Liu K. Measurement error and its impact on partial correlation and multiple linear regression analyses. Am J Epidemiol. 1988;127:864–74.
Segerstrom SC. Statistical Guideline #2. Report appropriate reliability for your sample, measure, and design. Int J Behav Med. In press.
Lynam DR, Hoyle RH, Newman JP. The perils of partialling: cautionary tales from aggression and psychopathy. Assessment. 2006;13:328–41.
Cronbach LJ, Meehl PE. Construct validity in psychological tests. Psychol Bull. 1955;52:281–302.
Miller GA, Chapman JP. Misunderstanding analysis of covariance. J Abnormal Psychol. 2001;110:40–8.
Head ML, Holman L, Lanfear R, Kahn AT, Jennions MD. The extent and consequences of p-hacking in science. PLoS Biol. 2015;13:e1002106.
Simonsohn U, Nelson LD, Simmons JP. P-curve: a key to the file-drawer. J Exp Psychol Gen. 2014;143:534–47.
Flack VF, Chang PC. Frequency of selecting noise variables in subset regression analysis: a simulation study. Am Stat. 1987;41:84–6.
Revenson TA. All other things are not equal: an ecological perspective on the relation between personality and disease. In: Friedman HS, editor. Personality and disease. New York: Wiley; 1990. p. 65–94.
Hull JG, Tedlie JC, Lehn DA. Moderator variables in personality research: the problem of controlling for plausible alternatives. Personal Soc Psychol Bull. 1992;18:115–7.
Segerstrom SC, Castañeda JO, Spencer TE. Optimism effects on cellular immunity: testing the affective and persistence models. Pers Ind Diff. 2003;35:1615–24.
Segerstrom SC, Smith GT. Methods, variance, and error in psychoneuroimmunology research: the good, the bad, and the ugly. In: Segerstrom SC, editor. Oxford handbook of psychoneuroimmunology. New York: Oxford; 2012. p. 421–32.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Conflict of Interest
The author declares that she has no conflicts of interest.
Human and Animal Rights
This article does not contain any studies with human participants or animals performed by the author, and so there was no requirement for informed consent.
Additional information
Publisher’s Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Segerstrom, S.C. Statistical Guideline #3: Designate and Justify Covariates A Priori, and Report Results With and Without Covariates. Int.J. Behav. Med. 26, 577–579 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12529-019-09811-5
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12529-019-09811-5