Inconclusive effects between executive functions and symptoms of psychiatric disorders in random-intercept cross-lagged panel models: A simulated reanalysis and comment on Halse et al. (2022)

In a recent study of Norwegian children (N = 874), Halse et al. (2022) used random-intercept cross-lagged panel models (RI-CLPM) and concluded that their findings supported the assumption that deficiencies in executive functions and psychopathology are both a cause and a consequence of the other. Here, we reanalyzed data simulated to resemble the data used by Halse et al. with several complementary models. Our findings of contradictory simultaneous increasing and decreasing effects suggested that prospective effects between executive deficits and symptoms of psychopathology were spurious rather than truly increasing. Consequently, conclusions by Halse et al. were not supported by their own data. It is important for researchers to bear in mind that correlations, including cross-lagged effects in RI-CLPM, do not prove causality. We recommend researchers to use, as we did here, triangulation to scrutinize findings from analyses of observational data.