Question

2. A different research team working on a related topic seeks to examine the ways in which neighborhood economic factors contribute to the neighborhood rates of drug use. What is the unit of analysis for this study?

2A. These same researchers find a relationship between poverty levels and drugs use rates. They conclude that individuals who are in poverty tend to have higher rates of drug use. What is potentially wrong with this conclusion about even the relationship they describe? (They openly recognize that this relationship is not causal so that is not the problem we are looking for.) [Possible bonus]

Answer 1

(2)
Unit of analysis for this study: Neighborhood i.e., social environment

Explanation:

Unit of anaysis is the entity that frames what is being analyzed in the study. Here, neighborhood (i.e., social environment) is being analyzed.

(2A)

The conclusion of the researchers that individuals who are in poverty tend to have higher rates of drug use is potentially wrong because both the variables: (i) poverty and (ii) drug use are related to a third confounding variable: frustration due to inability to satisfy even basic necessities of life. Because a person is extremely poor, he is unable to satisfy even basic necessities of life. He becomes frustrated. A person addicted to drug use looses money in the process and thus he becomes extremely poor due to drug use.