Despite being littered (ahem) with causal inferences, this story on the relationship between cat populations and country-level happiness provides an excellent example of a correlational moderator. The NYPost covered the research, which originally appeared in the empirical journal, PLOSOne. The study found that countries with more cats had higher levels of happiness. But there was …
Category: Chapter 08; Bivariate Correlation Research
“The surprising health benefits of reading a book”
We have AI to read books for us now, of course. But in the olden days, many humans would curl up with a bound set of paper and read the words on it. Reading actual books for pleasure is less popular than ever, though many of us still do it! Reading is associated with several …
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Does watching sports make people happy?
Does watching sports make people happy? Time magazine says it does. Their headline for this study reads, "Why Watching Sports Makes People Happy". Let's examine whether the study they reviewed is set up to establish causation. Is attending the game making them happier? Or do happier people tend to go to more games? This study …
We’re talking less
In the textbook's Chapter 6 you read about an Electronically Activated Recorder, or EAR device, which is able to record people's conversations throughout the day. Researchers have used it to estimate how many words people speak per day. You might remember how the original study found no gender difference in words spoken per day. They …
Where do you look as you walk across campus?
Imagine walking across your college campus at night, a low-visibility situation. As you walk along, what areas of the image stand out most to you? Imagine tapping on the spots of the image where you'd be focusing your eyes during your walk. Imagine you're walking along this path. Tap on areas of the photo that …
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Video: How to Study Resilience
I just discovered a new series of videos called SciFusion Shorts, which posts well-produced, video interviews with psychology researchers around the world. They're a great place to hear about cutting-edge research and practice research methods concepts such as conceptual definitions, operational definitions, ethics, and graphing correlational results. The researchers use video clips to study resilience. …
Fast walkers, fast thinkers?
Here's another instagram post from Kyle Inspires. This one is about how fast people walk. He's on Youtube and Facebook, too, but here are links to the story on Instagram and TikTok: Instagram:https://www.instagram.com/reel/DSp0Hy1jlwb/?igsh=cGNlaGNhYjR1MThqTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@kyleinspires/video/7587465849527667982 What variables does walking speed supposedly correlate with? How strongly does it correlate? Photo: GagliardiPhotography/Shutterstock a) Watch Kyle Inspires' short video …
Checking out claims about August babies on TikTok/IG
I've started to get videos from poster Kyle Inspires on my Instagram feed; he's also posted them on TikTok, Youtube and Facebook. Let's work through an example of one of his claims. One of the claims is that members of professional orchestras are much more likely to have been August babies. Can you locate the …
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Doing almost anything is better with friends
Last fall, some social scientists published a study using data from one of my favorite national surveys--the American Time Use Survey. (I'm a nosy psychologist who is fascinated by how people spend their days.). They concluded that doing almost any daily activity is more enjoyable when we do it with friends. Here's how the research …
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“Running on little sleep? You’re twice as likely to get hurt”
Here's a research synopsis from the Science Daily website with the headline, "Running on little sleep? You're twice as likely to get hurt." The way this heading is phrased, it makes it sound like a causal claim. Phrases such as "twice as likely" don't make it causal, but the "if...then..." nature of the headline does …
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