Hi all! I would really appreciate your help. Hopefully this is just a quick question to confirm or deny my thought process.

I’m getting to grips with mediation analysis and want to use PROCESS and just trying to get my bearings with a research idea before taking it further. I (think) I have one latent variable “Meaning & Work Inventory” - which is comprised of three factor but also gives directions as to calculate a total / sum score to derive a “meaningful work“ score. My question is, if I only used/computed the “sum score” would that mean my variable could be considered an observed variable and I could use PROCESS?

From Hayes’ website FAQ regarding this, “If your "latent" variable is a average of indicators and available in your data as such, then technically it isn't a latent variable; it is observed.”

Thank you!