8.6 Path types

• good vs. bad
• front door vs. back door
• beware direct vs. indirect effects

Good Paths are the reasons why the treatment and outcome variables are related that you think should “count” for your research question. Bad paths are the paths that shouldn’t count, in other words the alternate explanations.

Paths where all the arrows face away from Treatment are also known as front door paths. The rest would then be “back door paths.”