title: Evaluating the significance of a GAM
body: <p>Can someone please help me interpret GAM p-values and significance? In a linear regression analysis a predictive variable may have an insignificant p-value, and yet still, be used for predictive purposes if the p-value of the entire model is significant. What do we do when p-values of predictive variables are insignificant in a GAM? I have run the model in R and gained the following output when running summary() and check.gam() on my model purchase ~ s(n_acts) + s(bal_crdt_ratio) + s(avg_prem_balance) + s(avg_fin_balance) + s(retail_crdt_ratio) + s(mortgage_age) + s(cred_limit)</p>
  
  <p>Please follow the link below for my R output</p>
  
  <p><a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/wzqee.png" rel="nofollow noreferrer">GAM summary() and gam.check()</a></p>