Transcript Notes

Section 5:
Correlational
Studies: Looking
for Relationship
In
descriptive research,
psychologists often want to
know whether two or more
phenomena are related & if so
how strongly
Correlation:
A measure of how
strongly 2 variables are related to
one another
 May be events, scores, etc
Variables: Characteristics of
behavior or experience that can be
measured or described by a
numeric scale
 Height, weight, age, income, IQ
score, # of smiles per minute, etc
Positive
correlation: Increases in
one variable are associated with
increases in the other
 Decreases are likewise associated
A correlation is rarely perfect
Negative correlation: Increases in
one variable are associated with
decreases in the other
Statistics
used to express a
correlation is called the
coefficient of correlation
Conveys both size & direction
of the correlation
Perfect positive =+1
Perfect negative =-1
Can
be misleading
Does not show
causation!!