Question

Ellie is an internal Consumer Insights researcher for JumpBab, a company that makes children's game Apps for smart devices. In her research of marketing trends, she observes that the downloads for her Apps is positively related to the per capita consumption of goat cheese; and negatively related to the number of engine failures of Ford Fiesta cars in the USA. Excited at finding these interesting relationships between these variables, she declares to her Marketing Manager that "JumpBab should include mentions goat cheese in all our marketing communications, but really stay away from Ford Fiesta cars!" Despite the statistical soundness of the data, Ellie's Marketing manager scoffs at her suggestion. This is likely because:

Answer 1

Answer: a. Ellie has most likely tapped into an illusionary correlation in her data.

Explanation:

Illusionary Correlation is a phenomenon in Psychology and Statistics where during the course of research, the researcher perceives a relationship to exist between the variables due to seemingly statistically significant findings when no such relationship actually exists.

The problem is that since such correlations are usually rare, they are easier to discover and fixate on.

The likelihood of children apps being influenced by goat cheese and the number of engine failures of Ford Fiesta cars in the USA would make quite a number of people scoff which is why her manager was skeptical.