When responding to your classmates, provide your perspective on whether the mediator or moderator is being interpreted and explained correctly.

First peer below.

In this study, the relationship between mental health information on social media and individuals' behavioral intentions to seek therapy is explored through the lens of social cognitive theory. Regular users and social media influencers play key roles in communicating mental health content, with influencers often serving as marketing sources for therapy companies. According to social cognitive theory, an influencer's positive experiences with therapy are expected to encourage their followers to seek therapy, and stronger engagement with the influencer should amplify this effect. The study addresses the nuanced and stigmatized context of mental health treatment, acknowledging that previous experiences with modeled behaviors might impact vicarious learning effects. To understand these influences, the researchers employ a moderated mediation model. The moderators, representing the quantity and valence of previous viewer experiences with therapy and the level of involvement with the influencer are examined for their interaction effects. Surprisingly, the results indicate no significant interaction effects of the moderators. However, direct positive effects are observed for both previous viewer experience and social media influencer (SMI) outcomes on outcome expectations. These positive expectations, in turn, are found to positively predict behavioral intentions to seek therapy. Interestingly, the study reveals a counterintuitive finding, with self-efficacy exhibiting a negative effect on behavioral intentions, adding complexity to the understanding of how individuals respond to mental health content on social media.

The general way that the author describes the mediator and moderator aligns with the principles outlined by Baron and Kenny (1986) in "The Mediator-Moderator Variable Distinction in Social Psychological Research." For mediation, the study examines how previous viewer experience with therapy (both quantity and valence) affects social cognitive theory-related outcomes, with the outcome expectations acting as a mediator in the relationship between these variables and behavioral intentions to seek therapy. This aligns with Baron and Kenny's conceptualization of a mediator as a variable that explains the process through which an independent variable influences a dependent variable.

Second peer below.

The article I have chosen to look further into regarding mediators and moderators is "Pathways to health: conceptual clarification and appropriate statistical treatment of mediator, moderator, and indirect effects using examples from burnout research" written by Tyrone Pretorius.

Within the article "Pathways to Health" a moderator makes its appearance stating "with regard to social support, the buffering hypothesis would predict that at low levels of social support, the relationship between stress and psychological well-being should be strong and direct". In this example the moderator is social support which directs the strength of the independent variable, stress and psychological well-being.

Baron and Kenny stated that "a moderator is a qualitative (e.g., sex, race, class) or quantitative (e.g., level of reward) variable that affects the direction and/or strength of the relation between an independent or predictor variable and a dependent or criterion variable". Tyrone has a similar definition of moderator, "A moderator is described as a third variable that 'affects the direction and/or strength of the relation between an independent or predictor variable and a dependent or criterion variable" (Pretorius, 2020).