Solved – Linear regression with interaction SPSS

categorical datainteractionmultiple regressionregression

I have to run a linear regression analysis with an interaction effect of two categorical variables:

  • Modality (audio, visual and audio-visual)
  • Repetition (1x, 2x and 4x)

I have already dummified the variables. Before I can run the analyses I have to compute the interaction term. But I don't know how I have to do this in the case of a variables with 3 categories (Because I have two dummy variables for each independent variable).

Best Answer

As a general principal, interactions are generally obtained by taking the product of the dummies included in the model

For example, if you include "visual" and "audio-visual" as levels of the first factor, and "2x" and "4x" as levels of the second (leaving "audio" and "1x" as baseline), then you'd have the four interaction dummies

"visual"x"2x"
"visual"x"4x"
"audio-visual"x"2x"
"audio-visual"x"4x"

calculated as an ordinary product of the main effect dummies. But I bet SPSS has a way of doing it more directly than you actually calculating them by multiplication (it's so many decades since I used SPSS I don't recall).