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indirect relationship

in structural equation modeling, a correlation between two variables that involves an intervening variable or mediator. For example, age may affect rate of pay, which in turn may affect job satisfaction: This being so, the correlation between age and job satisfaction would be an indirect relationship. The term is often used incorrectly to denote a negative relationship. Compare direct relationship.

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Psychology term of the day

January 30th 2025

Gödel’s proof

Gödel’s proof

a proof that in any logic system at least as powerful as arithmetic it is possible to state theorems that can be proved to be neither true nor false, using only the proof rules of that system. Published in 1931, this incompleteness result was very challenging to the mathematics of the time. British mathematician Alan Turing (1912–1954), with his proof of the undecidability of the halting problem, extended this result to computation (see Turing machine). [Kurt Gödel (1906–1978), Austrian-born U.S. mathematician]