PSYC 231 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Spurious Relationship, Dependent And Independent Variables
22 Jun 2018
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TESTING HYPOTHESIS IN SOCIAL PSYCH
Correlational Research
o Two or more factors associated to one another
Strength of association reflected by CORRELATION COEFFICIENT
r= 0.00 to 1.00
Can be positive or negative
Weak = 0.10 to 0.30
Moderate = 0.30 to 0.50
Strong = > 50
o Key Points
The strength of a correlation tells us how accurately we can predict variable B
based on knowing the value of variable A (or variable A knowing the value of
variable B)
Example: Cacioppo's Correlational Loneliness Research
o Lonely people are less healthy and tend to die earlier
" feeling that the current state of social relationships are more negative than
one would like them to be" (social psychology definition of loneliness)
o Poor sleep
Lonely people get less hrs and less quality of sleep than non-lonely people
o Conclusion
cannot say that loneliness causes poor sleep, because directionality problem
became interested in variables that might contribute to this - so began to
survey several behaviors, perceptions that separate lonely from non-lonely
Problems with Correlation
1. Direction of causality
2. Third Variables
Spurious correlation
TESTING HYPOTHESIS IN SOCIAL PSYCH
Experimental Designs
