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According to some child psychologists, children's success in later life can be estimated from the number of tattoos they have. The United Nations asked psychologists from a number of Pacific nations to evaluate this claim. Each researcher employs participants aged between 40 and 45. For each participant, the researcher determines the number of tattoos he or she had as a child and current success (1=loser, 12=winner). Compute Spearman's rs correlation coefficient, and report your findings as for a journal article.

Tats Success
20 8.8
16 10
10 7.8
4 2.6
0 12
18 5.2
25 8.9

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Solution Summary

Help is given with psychological statistics. The expert examines Spearman versus Correlation Coefficients.

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Good morning from Cleveland, Ohio.

Let's see if I can shed a little light on the situation you have presented. First off, sit back and relax. Statistics should not create a feeling in you of anxiety, frustration and or fear. Statistical processes are nothing more than that which you learned in high school, namely addition, division, subtraction and multiplication. The weired and funny little Greek symbols and letters we as statisticians place before numbers are only for the purpose of telling us what to add, what to subtract, what to divide and what to multiply - nothing more. And, statistical formulas are nothing more than recipes for making best fit research decisions. These processes are no different than a recipe one would use to bake a cake. The cake recipe tells you exactly how much flour to use (1 C), how much salt (1/4 tps), how much butter (1/2 tbs), and so on. If you follow the cake recipe and statistical recipe exactly as presented you will end up with an accurate best fit research decision and one heck of a delicious cake. However, it you do not follow the recipe you will not be accurate in the decision making process and end up having to buy a Hostess Twinkie to satisfy your sweet tooth desire. :-)

Okay...let's move on. Follow with me now. All statistical processes in best fit research decision making serve one of three purposes, namely to establish differences, to establish causality, and to establish relationships. As such one cannot use a relationship statistical process (correlation) and end up talking about diffrences or cause and effect. The same is true for the other statistical processes. In your situation the problem set forth is to determine whether or not a relationship can be found between the number of tats a person has and success in life. Always remember as well that correlation coefficients lie on a continium between -1.0 and +1.0. If ever have a correlation coefficient greater than -1.0 or +1.0 a mathematical mistake has simply ...

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