In two structural equation models, I am comparing the association of two different psychopathological measures with emotion regulation. Emotion regulation is a latent variable with a 4 manifest variables that construct it (lets call them A, B, C, D), which are the same in both models. In model 1, A and C have positive signs while B and D have negative signs. In model 2, B and D have positive signs while A and C are negative. I would like this to be consistent in both models, as currently model 1 reflects "efficiency of emotion regulation" and model 2 reflects "inefficiency of emotion regulation". This will surely confuse reviewers and readers...
You could try assigning user-defined starting values to the factor loadings that have the desired sign. In the lavaan package, this is done as described on the website below:
https://lavaan.ugent.be/tutorial/syntax2.html
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