Question

This section of the assignment is designed to cultivate skills related to interpreting meaning from quantitative data. As part of a larger study, Speed and Gangestad (1997) collected ratings and nominations on a number of characteristics for 66 fraternity men from their fellow fraternity members. The following paragraph is taken from their results section:

. . . men's romantic popularity significantly correlated with several characteristics: best dressed (r = .48), most physically attractive (r = .47), most outgoing (r = .47), most self- confident (r = .44), best trendsetters (r =.38), funniest (r = .37), most satisfied (r = .32), and most independent (r =.28). Unexpectedly, however, men's potential for financial success did not significantly correlate with romantic popularity (r = .10). (p. 931)

Explain these results as if you were writing to a person who had never had a course in statistics. Specifically:

a) Explain what is meant by correlation coefficient using one of the correlations above as an example.

b) Provide your thoughts on the meaning of the pattern of results. (You could speculate on the meaning of the pattern of results, taking into account the issue of direct causality. You could also indicate what kinds of conclusions could NOT be drawn).  

Answer 1

Answer to part a)

R is correlation coefficient , it tells about the relation strength and direction of two variables

For example: r = 0.48 for the two variables well-dressed and romantic popularity

This implies that the two variables are positively related and the value or magnitude of r indicates an average of moderate realtion between the two variables

A magnitude close to 1 or -1 indicates a strong relation and a value close to 0 indicates a weak relation

.

Answer to part b)

Thus we get to know from the results that:

Being best dressed, physically attractive , most outgoing , self confident and best trendsetters , funniest and most satisfied and most independent are a few factors that contribute to a men’s romantic popularity. These all factors have a low to moderate correlation coefficient , which is positive for all these variables.

The financial success doesnot have an influence on the romantic attractiveness of a man, it doesnot have a significant relation. It has a r value of 0.10 which is a very weak positive correlation