Question

Professor Rodman, a social psychologist, studied the relationship between the severity of injuries in automobile accidents and the use of seat belts. He obtained a correlation coefficient of –0.72. In the context of correlational research, which of the following conclusions will the professor most likely arrive at?a) wearing seat belts causes injuries in 72 percent of all accidentsb) wearing a seatbelt is not predictive of the type of injury one receives in an accidentc) people who wear seat belts sustain less serious injuries in an accidentd) people who wear seat belts sustain more injuries in an accident

Answer 1

Answer: c) people who wear seat belts sustain less serious injuries in an acciden

Explanation:

The CORRELATION COEFFICIENT is a very useful tool in statistics that checks the relationship between 2 variables.

The COEFFICIENT is a number between -1 and +1. A Coefficient of ZERO means there is no Correlation.

A Coefficient of +1 means that the variables are Perfectly Positively Correlated meaning that when one variable occurs, the other does as well. A Coefficient of -1 is Negatively Perfectly Correlated and is the reverse of the above.

The closer to -1 or +1 the Coefficient is, the STRONGER the correlation be it Negative or Positive.

Professor Rodman got a Correlation of -0.72 meaning that the 2 variables are very Negatively Correlated as the number is close to -1.

This means MORE seatbelts, LESS severity of accidents and vice versa.