Relationships and Hypotheses in Social Science Research

Abstract

This paper highlights the variables and their relationships in a social science framework, since most of the social science studies focus on investigating relations and causal impacts between/among the variables. As a main focus, this paper illustrates identification of variables in direct causal relationship, indirect causal relationship (refers to moderating variable), and direct and indirect causal relationship (refers to mediating variable) with their relative identical linear models and hypotheses to be investigated. Further, this paper emphasizes that a social science study should consider alternative hypothesis as the direction of its investigation.

Keywords: models, variables, moderating, mediating, hypothesis

JEL Classification: C12, C18, C20, C30