Four research participants take a test of manual dexterity (high scores mean bet

Question

Four research participants take a test of manual dexterity (high scores mean better dexterity) and an anxiety test (high scores mean more anxiety). The scores are as follows:

Person                          Dexterity                       Anxiety

1                                  1                                  10

2                                  1                                    8

3                                  2                                    4

4                                  4                                  -2

Provide three logically possible directions of causality, indicating for each direction whether it is a reasonable explanation for the correlation in light of the variables involved. Explain why.

Explanation / Answer

We have the following possibilities with respect to the variables x and y:
(i) x and y are not correlated - This appears highly improbable because research has shown that people who have confidence in their skills and abilities and less anxiety-prone than those who are not confident.
(ii) x and y are directly correlated - This again, is illogical because we would definitely expect a skilled person to be less anxious about an assigned task than one who is not skilled.
(iii) x and y are inversely correlated - This is the most probable causality, because more skills a person has, more confident she is and therefore less prone to being anxious.

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