Questionable longitudinal effects among perceived teacher support, ego depletion, and developmental crisis: A reanalysis and commentary on Meng et al. (2026)

<p>Using a cross-lagged panel model, Meng et al. interpreted their findings as evidence of reciprocal longitudinal relations among perceived teacher support, ego depletion, and developmental crisis in Chinese graduate students. Cross-lagged coefficients, however, are not necessarily indicative of genuine temporal influence and can arise as statistical artifacts. In the present study, we applied a set of alternative analytical approaches to data simulated to match the characteristics of the dataset analyzed by Meng et al. Across models, estimated longitudinal effects varied markedly in both magnitude and direction, yielding patterns of both increases and decreases depending on the specification employed. When these divergent estimates were synthesized meta-analytically, the resulting aggregate effects were not statistically different from zero. These findings suggest that the conclusions drawn by Meng et al. may not be well supported by the available evidence. Consistent with multiverse methodology, we argue that longitudinal claims should be evaluated across multiple plausible analytic frameworks and summarized using aggregated evidence.</p>