Effects in random-intercept cross-lagged panel models may be spurious: A simulated reanalysis and comment on Specker et al.’s (2024) study on post-migration stressors, emotion dysregulation, and symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder

Specker et al. (2024) conducted analyses with the random-intercept cross-lagged panel model (RI-CLPM) and concluded, for example, that emotion dysregulation and post-migration stressors have increasing effects on the posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptom hyperarousal among refugees. Here, we evaluated the conclusion by Specker et al. through triangulation. We fitted several models on data simulated to resemble the data analyzed by Specker et al. We used simulated data as the empirical data used by Specker et al. was not available to us. The present results suggested simultaneous and contradictory increasing and decreasing effects of emotion dysregulation and post-migration stressors on hyperarousal. Due to these contradictory findings, we concluded that longitudinal associations between these constructs probably were spurious rather than truly increasing. This conclusion was corroborated by the good fit of a model (the model of spurious longitudinal associations, MoSLA) where associations between emotion dysregulation / post-migration stressors and hyperarousal were due to confounding by a common trait and by common auto-correlated state factors. It is important for researchers to be aware that correlations, including effects in the RI-CLPM, do not prove causality. Researchers are recommended to scrutinize their findings from correlational analyses through triangulation. With congruent findings from several models, conclusions of genuine increasing or decreasing effects are corroborated. If, on the other hand and as in the present case, findings from different models diverge, conclusions of genuine effects seem premature.