Question

1. pretend that you are a sociologist studying the relationship between watching television and depression. you found that people who watched more television also described themselves as very happy. from this research, can you conclude that there is a cause - and - effect relationship between television - watching and happiness? why or why not?

Explanation:

Correlation does not imply causation. Just because people who watch more television describe themselves as happy does not mean watching TV causes happiness. There could be other factors at play, like personality traits that make someone both more likely to watch TV and be happy.

Answer:

No, you cannot conclude there is a cause - and - effect relationship. Just because there is a correlation between watching television and self - reported happiness does not mean one causes the other. There may be confounding variables.