SOC 101 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Male Unemployment
Document Summary
Positive correlation vs negative correlation vs causality vs spuriousness. Positive correlation: a relationship as one variable rises or falls, the other does as well. Example: obesity rates increase as poverty rates increase. Negative correlation: one variable increases as the other decreases. Example: marriage rates decrease as male unemployment increases. Spuriousness (fake) marriage are associated with decreases in crime. Validity: concepts and measurement accurately represent what they claim to represent. Reliability: the extent to which the findings are consistent with different studies of the same phenomenon or with the same study over time. Bias: a characteristic of results that systematically misrepresents the full dimensions of what is being studied. Examples: measurement error; truthfulness of respondents; having a representative sample.
