Studies have shown that the longer children had lived in an orphanage the lower their IQ scores are. Is this a positive or negative correlation? Provide an explanation.
http://psychology.about.com/od/cindex/g/def_correlation.htm
What do you think?
In order to determine whether the correlation between the length of time spent in an orphanage and lower IQ scores is positive or negative, we need to understand what these terms mean in the context of correlation.
In statistics, a positive correlation means that as one variable increases, the other variable also tends to increase. On the other hand, a negative correlation means that as one variable increases, the other variable tends to decrease.
In the scenario you mentioned, the longer children had lived in an orphanage, the lower their IQ scores. Since the length of time in an orphanage and lower IQ scores both increase, we can conclude that this relationship is a negative correlation.
To verify this conclusion, you could conduct a statistical analysis using data on the length of time children spent in an orphanage and their corresponding IQ scores. This could involve calculating the correlation coefficient, such as Pearson's correlation coefficient, which measures the strength and direction of the relationship between two variables.
Once you obtain the correlation coefficient, a value close to -1 indicates a strong negative correlation, confirming the negative relationship between time spent in the orphanage and lower IQ scores.