Question

A social psychologist is interested in the relationship between religiosity and marital satisfaction.

What is the independent variable and dependent variable?

Answer 1

Here religiosity is considered as the independent variable. Because variation in religiosity may cause some changes in marital satisfaction. So marital satisfaction is dependent variable. Any changes in religiosity such as high or low may produce certain changes in marital satisfaction. We always consider independent variable as a cause and dependent variable as an effect. In this study we can assume that there will be a kind of relationship between religiosity and marital satisfaction. For measuring their relationship we can use correlation analysis but it will tell you which is cause and which is effect. So we have to use regression analysis to specify religiosity as independent variable and marital satisfaction as dependent variable to understand the real causal influence.

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