Objective 6: Define what a positive, negative, and zero correlation is.

As defined by my textbook, Psychology Tenth Edition in Modules, correlation is defined as a measure of the extent to which two factors vary together, and thus of how well either factor predicts the other. In my terms, correlations appear to be the measure of two variables relationship to each other; this relationship can us define and predict how they interact. Correlation coefficients are numbers that represent the relationship between two things, and the coefficient falls somewhere between the range of ! and !. "he closer the absolute value of the coefficient is to one, the stronger the relationship. #or example, if exercising more than $% minutes a day and being deemed &psychically fit had a coefficient of .'( they would have a strong relationship. Inversely, if exercising less than $% minute a day and higher blood pressure had a correlation of .'( they would have an e)ually strong correlation. "he strength of a correlation can also be seen in the compactness of the dots along a line of linear regression. "he close the dots are to each other along the line, the stronger the correlation. "his is where some people get lost in the technicalities of correlation. A positive correlation means that the two factors rise or fall together *+. A negative correlation indicates that two factors relate inversely *+. ,ere is an example of a positive and negative correlation-

As you can see above in a positive correlation, the amount of hours revising *+ and the exam results *+ were strongly related and rose together, indicating a strong positive correlation *+. Also in the example shows a negative correlation. As the number of people giving flu &.abs or shots, increases *+ the number of people of people with the flu fell *+ indicating a negative correlation *+. "his brings us to our final correlation, /ero0 If two factors have /ero correlation, or a correlation coefficient of %.%% they show no sign of relation. "his can easily be seen on the following scatterplot-

It would be very hard to find a line that best fits this data set. As you can see, the shoe si/e of a person has no correlation to the I1 of a person. "he data points do not show any pattern or relationship, thus indicating a correlation of %.

http-22www.miracosta.edu2,ome2rmorrissette2sct/ero.gif I image to give an example of how positive and negative correlations work, and how real life situations like the number of flu shots given correlates to the number of illnesses, or how the number of hours studying correlates to exam results.

http-22scienceaid.co.uk2psychology2approaches2images2correlation..pg I used this source to give an example of how things like shoe si/es can have almost no correlation to shoe si/es and I1.