Salska and colleagues (2008) studied height preferences among dating partners. In their first study, they reviewed Yahoo persona
ls for heterosexual individuals living within 250 miles of Los Angeles, California, and recorded the acceptable range of heights for their dating partners. The following table lists some of the results. Overall, did men or women show greater variability in their responses? Explain.Women MenPreferences M SD M SDShortestacceptableheight, inches 68.9 2.6 60.6 3.7Tallestacceptableheight, inches 75.3 2.2 69.8 2.7a) Women showed greater variability overall because the standard deviations for women were smaller than for men. b) Women showed greater variability overall because the means for women were larger than for men. c) Men showed greater variability overall because the means for men were smaller than for women.d) Men showed greater variability overall because the standard deviations for men were larger than for women
The larger standard deviation, the greater the variability. So even before looking at the data, we can eliminate a) and c).
The standard deviations of men's preference of shortest and tallest acceptable height (3.7 and 2.7, respectively) were more than the standard deviations of women's preference of shortest and tallest acceptable height (2.6 and 2.2, respectively).
So men showed greater variability overall because the standard deviations for men were larger than for women. Answer D.
