Chapter 9 - Correlation and Regression

9.1 Infant Mortality in Sub-Saharan Africa

a. & b.
Infant Mortality as f(Income)
All Countries
Infant Mortality

120

Slope = -0.010
80
60

1000 2000 3000 4000 5000 6000

Income

Infant Mortality as f(Income)

Omitting Outliers
Infant Mortality

120

Slope = .023
80
60

1000 2000 3000 4000 5000 6000

Income

c. Those two points would almost certainly draw the line toward them, which will
flatten the slope. If we remove those countries we have the second graph with a
steeper slope.

9.3 Significance of correlations

The minimum sample size in this example is 25, and we will use that. We would need t =
2.069 for a two-tailed test on N – 2 = 23 df. A little (well, maybe a lot) of algebra will
show that a correlation of .396 will produce that t value.

9.5 If we put these two predictors together using methods covered in Chapter 15, the multiple
correlation will be .58, which is only a small amount higher than Income alone.

9.7 I suspect that a major reason why this variable does not play a more important role is the
fact that it has very little variance. The range is 3% - 7%. One cause of this may be the
very high death rate among women in sub-saharan Africa. There are many fewer women
giving birth at ages above 40. To quote from a United Nations report
(http://www.un.org/ecosocdev/geninfo/women/women96.htm):
  Women are becoming increasingly affected by HIV. Today about 42 per cent of
estimated cases are women, and the number of infected women is expected to reach
15 million by the year 2000.

 An estimated 20 million unsafe abortions are performed worldwide every year,

resulting in the deaths of 70,000 women.

 Approximately 585,000 women die every year, over 1,600 every day, from causes
related to pregnancy and childbirth. In sub-Saharan Africa, 1 in 13 women will die
from pregnancy or childbirth related causes, compared to 1 in 3,300 women in the
United States.

 Globally, 43 per cent of all women and 51 per cent of pregnant women suffer from
iron-deficiency anemia.

9.9 Psychologists are very much interested in studying variables related to behavior and in
finding ways to change behavior. I would guess that they would have a good deal to say
about educating women in ways that would decrease infant mortality.

9.11 The relationship is decidedly curvilinear, and Pearson’s r is a statistic on linear

relationships.

9.13 Power for n = 25,  = .20

d  1  .20
  1 N  1  .20 24  0.98
power  .17

9.15 Number of symptoms predicted for a stress score of 8 using the data in Table 9.2 :

Regression equation: Y  0.0086  X   4.30

If Stress score (X) = 8: Y  0.0086 8  4.30

Predicted ln(symptoms) score is : Y  4.37

9.17 Confidence interval on Y :

I will calculate them for X incrementing between 0 and 60 in steps of 10

 CI Y   Y  t /2  sY . X 

1  Xi  X   Xi  X 
2 2
1
sY . X  sY . X 1   0.1726 1  
N  N  1 s X2 107 106 156.05 

Y  0.00856 X  4.30
t /2  1.983

For X from 0 to 60 in steps of 10, s’Y.X =

0.1757 0.1741 0.1734 0.1738 0.1752 0.1776 0.1810

CI (Y )  Yˆ  (t /2 )(sY' . X )
For several different values of X, calculate Y and s'Y.X and plot the results.
X= 0 10 20 30 40 50 60
Y = 4.300 4.386 4.471 4.557 4.642 4.728 4.814

The curvature is hard to see, but it is there, as can be seen in the graphic on the right,
which plots the width of the interval as a function of X. (It’s fun to play with R).

9.19 Galton’s data

a.
a
Coefficients

Standardized
Unstandardized Coefficients Coefficients

Model B Std. Error Beta t Sig.

1 (Constant) 23.942 2.811 8.517 .000

midparent .646 .041 .459 15.711 .000

 a
Coefficients

Standardized
Unstandardized Coefficients Coefficients

Model B Std. Error Beta t Sig.

1 (Constant) 23.942 2.811 8.517 .000

midparent .646 .041 .459 15.711 .000

a. Dependent Variable: child

b. Predicted height = 0.646*(Midparent) + 23.942

c. Child Means

Descriptives

child

95% Confidence Interval for Mean

N Mean Std. Deviation Std. Error Lower Bound Upper Bound

1 392 67.12 2.247 .113 66.90 67.35

2 219 68.02 2.240 .151 67.72 68.32

3 183 68.71 2.465 .182 68.35 69.06

4 134 70.18 2.269 .196 69.79 70.57

Total 928 68.09 2.518 .083 67.93 68.25

Parent means
Descriptives

midparent

95% Confidence Interval for Mean

N Mean Std. Deviation Std. Error Lower Bound Upper Bound

1 392 66.66 1.068 .054 66.56 66.77

2 219 68.50 .000 .000 68.50 68.50

3 183 69.50 .000 .000 69.50 69.50

4 134 71.18 .786 .068 71.04 71.31

Total 928 68.31 1.787 .059 68.19 68.42

 d. Parents in the highest quartile have a mean of 71.18, while their children have a mean
of 70.18. Those parents in the lowest quartile have a mean of 66.66, while their
children have a mean of 67.14. This is what we would expect to happen.

e.

9.21 Number of subjects needed in Exercise 9.20 for power = .80:

For power = .80,  = 2.80

  1 N  1
2.80  .40 N  1
N  1  2.80 / .40  7
N  50

9.23 Katz et al. correlations with SAT scores.

a. r1 = .68 r1' = .829

r2 = .51 r2' = .563
r1 ' r2 ' . 829 . 563
z  
1 1 1 1
 
N 1 3 N 2 3 14 25
0. 797
The correlations are not significantly different from each other.
 b. We do not have reason to argue that the relationship between performance and prior
test scores is affected by whether or not the student read the passage.

9.25 It is difficult to tell whether the significant difference between the results of the two
previous problems is to be attributable to the larger sample sizes or the higher (and thus
more different) values of r'. It is likely to be the former.

9.27 Moore and McCabe example of alcohol and tobacco use:

Correlati ons

ALCOHOL TOBACCO
ALCOHOL Pearson Correlation 1.000 .224
Sig. (2-tailed) . .509
N 11 11
TOBACCO Pearson Correlation .224 1.000
Sig. (2-tailed) .509 .
N 11 11

b. The data suggest that people from Northern Ireland actually drink relatively little.
6.5

6.0

5.5
Alcohol use

5.0

4.5

4.0

3.5
2.5 3.0 3.5 4.0 4.5 5.0

T obacco use

c. With Northern Ireland excluded from the data the correlation is .784, which is
significant at p = .007.

9.29 a. The correlations range between .40 and .80.

b. The subscales are not measuring independent aspects of psychological well-being.

9.31 Relationship between height and weight for males:

Scatterplot for Males

225

198

171
Weight

144

117

90
60 65 70 75 80
Height

The regression solution that follows was produced by SPSS and gives all relevant results.

Model Summaryb

Adjusted St d. Error of
Model R R Square R Square the Estimate
1 .604a .364 .353 14.9917
a. Predictors: (Constant), HEIGHT
b. Gender = Male

ANOVAb,c

Sum of
Model Squares df Mean Square F Sig.
1 Regression 7087.800 1 7087.800 31.536 .000a
Residual 12361.253 55 224.750
Total 19449.053 56
a. Predictors: (Const ant), HEIGHT
b. Dependent Variable: WEIGHT
c. Gender = Male
 Coeffi ci entsa,b

St andardi
zed
Unstandardized Coef f icien
Coef f icients ts
Model B St d. Error Beta t Sig.
1 (Constant) -149.934 54.917 -2.730 .008
HEIGHT 4.356 .776 .604 5.616 .000
a. Dependent Variable: WEIGHT
b. Gender = Male

With a slope of 4.36, the data predict that two males who differ by one inch will also
differ by approximately 4 1/3 pounds. The intercept has no meaning because people are
not 0 inches tall, but the fact that it is so largely negative suggests that there is some
curvilinearity in this relationship for low values of Height.

Tests on the correlation and the slope are equivalent tests when we have one predictor,
and these tests tell us that both are significant. Weight increases reliably with increases in
height.

9.33 As a 5’8” male, my predicted weight is Y = 4.356(Height) - 149.934 = 4.356*68 -

149.934 = 146.27 pounds.

a. I weigh 146 pounds. (Well, I did two years ago.) Therefore the residual in the
prediction is Y- Y = 146 - 146.27 = -0.27.

b. If the students on which this equation is based under- or over-estimated their own
height or weight, the prediction for my weight will be based on invalid data and will
be systematically in error.

9.35 The male would be predicted to weigh 137.562 pounds, while the female would be
predicted to weigh 125.354 pounds. The predicted difference between them would be
12.712 pounds.

9.37 Independence of trials in reaction time study.

The data were plotted by “trial”, where a larger trial number represents an observation
later in the sequence.
 Although the regression line has a slight positive slope, the slope is not significantly
different from zero. This is shown below.

DEP VAR: TRIAL N: 100 MULTIPLE R: 0.181 SQUARED MULTIPLE R: 0.033

ADJUSTED SQUARED MULTIPLE R: 0.023 STANDARD ERROR OF ESTIMATE: 28.67506

VARIABLE COEFFICIENT STD ERROR STD COEF TOLERANCE T P(2 TAIL)

CONSTANT 221.84259 15.94843 0.00000 . .14E+02 .10E-14

RXTIME 0.42862 0.23465 0.18146 1.00000 1.82665 0.07080

ANALYSIS OF VARIANCE
SOURCE SUM-OF-SQUARES DF MEAN-SQUARE F-RATIO P

REGRESSION 2743.58452 1 2743.58452 3.33664 0.07080

RESIDUAL 80581.41548 98 822.25934

There is not a systematic linear or cyclical trend over time, and we would probably be
safe in assuming that the observations can be treated as if they were independent. Any
slight dependency would not alter our results to a meaningful degree.

9.39 What about Eris?

Eris doesn’t fit the plot as well as I would have liked. It is a bit too far away.
9.41 Comparing correlations in males and females.

r1'  r2'
z
1 1

N1  3 N 2  3

.648  .343 .305 .305

  
1 1 0.0085 .092

284 222
 3.30

The difference between the two correlations is significant.