Practice Problems: Correlation Answer

Researchers interested in determining if there is a relationship between death anxiety and religiosity conducted the following study. Subjects completed a death anxiety scale (high score = high anxiety) and also completed a checklist designed to measure an individuals degree of religiosity (belief in a particular religion, regular attendance at religious services, number of times per week they regularly pray, etc.) (high score = greater religiosity . A data sample is provided below:

1. What is your computed answer? r = -.696069034 or -.70

2. What does this statistic mean concerning the relationship between death anxiety and religiosity? There is a moderate to strong correlation between death anxiety and religiousity. Individuals with high levels of religiosity have lower levels of death anxiety and vice versa. We can not say that participation in religious activities causes lower levels of death anxiety as one can not draw this sort of cause and effect conclusion based on a correlational study.

3. What percent of the variability is accounted for by the relation of these two variables? r² = .48