Hierarchical Bayes Analysis with Gender Segmentation

Hello,

I have been conducting Hierarchical Bayes (HB) analysis to investigate preferences based on gender in my study. Initially, I used the filter function to analyze preferences for male and female respondents separately. However, I also ran a general HB analysis without filters and then segmented the data by gender using the utility report feature.

My Observations:

Differences in Results: The utility values and average importances I obtained through the filter function for women and men differ significantly from those obtained through the segment report for the same genders. For instance, in the utility report, women showed a higher preference for above-average salaries compared to men, whereas the results from the filtered analysis yielded different utility values for women.

My Questions:

Which Approach is More Reliable?: Should I rely on the filtered analysis that isolates preferences within each gender group, or should I use the general HB analysis and segment by gender to understand overall trends?

Contextual Interpretation: What are the best practices for interpreting differences in preferences when using these two methods?

Thank you very much.

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