Can a moderator have a moderator?

Question

I'm quite new to stats so this might be a problem of perspective on my part.

Let's say I have the following:

• IV: How my friend group feels about helping people
• DV: Whether or not I help someone

It has already been shown that IV interacts with DV.

Then someone else shows that $M$ moderates the IV-DV interaction:

• $M$: How much I care about my friends' opinions

I am wondering if $N$ could moderate $M$:

• $N$: How much I see a very simple thing I could do to help someone

Conceptually, $N$ would moderate the strength of the moderation $M$ on the IV-DV relationship. If the task is so small, it could change how much I care about my friends' opinions.

I find nothing on the web and nothing on this site about this (moderating a moderator).

I see that often (though not necessarily) $M$ will have an interaction on the DV. If that is the case, it might be more accurate to see that $N$ is just a moderator and it is moderating the $M$-DV relationship and $M$ is seen as the IV. But I'm unclear.

Answer 1

Moderated moderation is a well-established model in path analysis / structural equation modeling, which as an example from the link takes on this relationship:

Given the complexity of estimating the inferential estimates with such models, one usually needs something like PROCESS or structural equation model to estimate them.