Having read the material on correlation, see if you can determine the direction of the correlation depicted in each of the following scenarios.
A study of married couples showed that the longer they had been married the more similar their opinions are on social and political issues.
An intelligence test was given to all the children in an orphanage. The results showed that the longer the children had lived in the orphanage, the lower their IQ scores.
In a study of American cities, it was found that as the number of violent crimes increased, so did the number of stores selling violence-depicting pornography.
A college professor found that the more class absences students have, the lower their grades in the course tend to be.
A politician running against a candidate who had been in office for eight years pointed out that violent crime had increased steadily during those eight years while the administration had appropriated more and more money to fight crime.
It was found that elementary school children who earned high scores on a vocabulary test also tended to earn high scores on a test of physical strength and muscle coordination.
The more money a person spends on his or her wardrobe, the higher the salary.
The larger the sum of money chemical plant corporations contribute to political campaigns, the fewer the number of citations their plants receive for violating environmental regulations.
The more semesters of psychology a student takes in college, the greater his or her reported satisfaction in life ten years after graduation.
The earlier the age at which a person starts to smoke, the greater the number of years that it takes for him or her to quit smoking.
Answers:
Introduction to Psychology : Read the remainder of chapter 2, section 2.2.
You're ready to move on to the next step, now that you've covered the material on experiments.
