Question

1. It is well known that similarity in attitudes, beliefs, and interests play an important role in interpersonal attraction. Thus, correlations for attitudes between married couples should be strong. Suppose a social psychologist developed a questionnaire that measures how liberal or conservative one’s attitudes are. Low scores indicate that the person has liberal attitudes, whereas high scores indicate conservatism. The following data were obtained from married couples:

Couple	Spouse 1	Spouse 2
A	11	15
B	6	4
C	18	20
D	4	6
E	1	3
F	10	11
G	5	5
H	3	7

1. What is the correlation between the attitudes of spouses?

2. How much variability in Spouse 2’s attitude is explained by Spouse 1’s attitude? (Be sure to interpret your numerical value)

Answer 1

Spouse 1, X	Spouse 2, Y	X* Y	X^2	Y^2
11	15	165	121	225
6	4	24	36	16
18	20	360	324	400
4	6	24	16	36
1	3	3	1	9
10	11	110	100	121
5	5	25	25	25
3	7	21	9	49
58	71	732	632	881

a)

The correlation coefficient is given by

and

Substituting the values from the table, we get

So, the correlation between the attitude of two spouses is 0.943

b)

R² = 0.943² = 0.88951

88.95% variability in Spouse 2’s attitude is explained by Spouse 1’s attitude

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