Enough Already About 'Black Box' Experiments: Studying Mediation is More Difficult than Most Scholars Suppose

Recent years have seen growing enthusiasm for regression models that purport to establish claims about mediation. Despite their growing popularity, these regression models rest on naive assumptions. The point of this essay is to puncture the widely held view that it is a relatively simple matter to establish the mechanism by which causality is transmitted. This means puncturing the faith that has been placed in commonly used statistical methods of establishing mediation.