PSY230H5 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Shyness, Convergent Validity, Discriminant Validity
Document Summary
This lecture explains the relation between correlations and causality. This lecture explains the distinction between personality measures and personality constructs (validity). Correlation does not prove causality r = p1 + p2 + p3 *p4 too many unknowns! Unless we have done an experiment we cannot claim causality. Correlation doesn"t prove causality but that doesn"t mean that we can"t use correlations to see if something is causal. Often it is not feasible (ethically immoral) to conduct experiments on personality so we have to use correlations to conduct research. Correlations can occur for a number of reasons but there is a limited number of reasons that can be the causal variable. Using a curve arrow between the two variables just means they are related it doesn"t say that they are directly related. There is a third variable that is causing the two variables to relate to each other. This correlation may vary depending on the culture.
