Structural equation models with interaction and quadratic effects have become a standard tool for testing nonlinear hypotheses in the social sciences. Most of the current approaches assume normally distributed latent predictor variables. In this article, we present a Bayesian model for the estimation of latent nonlinear effects when the latent…

Bifactor latent structures were introduced over 70 years ago, but only recently has bifactor modeling been rediscovered as an effective approach to modeling "construct-relevant" multidimensionality in a set of ordered categorical item responses. I begin by describing the Schmid-Leiman bifactor procedure (Schmid & Leiman, 1957) and highlight its…