Question

A human resources manager wants to analyze employee wellness at a large company. She collects data on job type, salary, working hours, years that the employee has been with the company, demographic data such as gender and age, as well as wellness-related data such as blood pressure, weight, exercise habits and sick days. She finds large positive correlations between salary and blood pressure, blood pressure and weight, age and blood pressure, age and salary and large negative correlations between exercise and weight and working hours and exercise. The most likely explanation for the large positive correlation between salary and blood pressure is a. that earning more money increases the employees blood pressure. b. employees with higher salaries tend to be older, and blood pressure increases with age. The correlation is hence explained by age. c. employees with high salaries face high levels of stress at this company and hence have higher blood pressure. d. employees with high blood pressure are more productive than people with low blood pressure and hence earn higher salaries.

Answer 1

Answer : C

Most appropriate and likely explanation is C.  employees with high salaries face high levels of stress at this company and hence have higher blood pressure.

Option B may not necessarily be a general case because even those who are young can have higher salaries. option A is totally inappropriate because it discounts the effect of some other more plausible factor that plays the role of lurking variable. D is also not appriopriate to conclude.

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