It's not a cedar tree, therefore it's not a tree: A commentary on Yao and Ma (2023)

Yao and Ma (2023) recently reviewed and reanalyzed 31 studies published in top-tier journals utilizing polynomial regression and response surface methods. Their work offers a useful holistic framework for how to test and categorize various forms of congruence; however, they ultimately advance cautionary conclusions about the extent to which 28 of the 31 studies provide "evidence of congruence" and call into question whether the practical implications of these studies are valid (p. 446). In this commentary, we clarify this inference stems largely from theoretical and empirical oversights made in Yao and Ma (2023). We bring to light issues surrounding (a) proposals that exact correspondence is the theoretical goal (despite 26 of the 31 studies explicitly hypothesizing deviation from that form) and (b) suggestions that authors did not adequately consider empirics they did report. Most critically, Yao and Ma suggested their reanalysis provides conclusions that differ from the reviewed studies in 28 (of 31) instances. We demonstrate that, when one accounts for the form of congruence the authors explicitly theorized, the type of congruence supported as well as the inferences discussed in the studies differ from those in Yao and Ma's reanalysis in only nine of 31 studies (rather than 28). This commentary seeks to rectify the theoretical, empirical, and inferential misconceptions in Yao and Ma (2023) that may lead readers to inaccurately assess past work and threaten future work in this vein. We outline a path for scholars interested in applying this method moving forward. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).