Name: Rose Ann O.

Sagurot Year, Course & Section: BS CPE 2A Score:

Instructor: Mrs. Mary Cris Yamuyam-Barion Date: November 1, 2021

ASSIGNMENT
Examples of Lurking Variables:
1. A researcher finds that ice cream sales and shark attacks are highly positively correlated.
Does this mean that increased ice cream sales are causing more shark attacks?
That’s unlikely. The more likely cause is the lurking variable weather. When it is warmer
outside, more people buy ice cream and more people go in the ocean.
2. A researcher finds that popcorn consumption and the amount of traffic accidents over
the years is highly correlated. Does this mean that higher popcorn consumption is causing
more traffic accidents?
That’s unlikely. The more likely cause is the lurking variable population. As the population
increases, both the amount of popcorn consumed and the amount of traffic accidents
increases.
3. A study finds that glove sales and snowboarding accidents are highly correlated. Does
this mean that gloves are causing more snowboard accidents to occur?
That’s unlikely. The more likely cause is the lurking variable temperature. As temperature
decreases, more people buy gloves and more people go snowboarding.
Examples of Confounding Variables:
1. A mother's education
Suppose a study is done to reveal whether bottle-feeding is related to an increase of
diarrhea in infants. It would appear logical that the bottle-fed infants are more prone to
diarrhea since water and bottles could easily get contaminated, or the milk could go bad.
However, the facts are that bottle-fed infants are less likely to get diarrhea than breast-fed
infants. Bottle feeding actually protects against illness.
The confounding variable would be the extent of the mother's education on the matter. If
you take the mother's education into account, you would learn that better educated
mothers are more likely to bottle-feed infants.
2. Weather
Another example is the correlation between murder rate and the sale of ice-cream. As the
murder rate raises so does the sale of ice-cream. One suggestion for this could be that
murderers cause people to buy ice-cream. This is highly unlikely.
A second suggestion is that purchasing ice-cream causes people to commit murder, also
highly unlikely. Then there is a third variable which includes a confounding variable. It is
distinctly possible that the weather causes the correlation.
While the weather is icy cold, fewer people are out interacting with others and less likely to
purchase ice-cream. Conversely, when it is hot outside, there is more social interaction and
more ice-cream being purchased. In this example, the weather is the variable that
confounds the relationship between ice-cream sales and murder.
3. Slanted wood
Another example is the relationship between the force applied to a ball and the distance the
ball travels. The natural prediction would be that the ball given the most force would travel
furthest.
However, if the confounding variable is a downward slanted piece of wood to help propel
the ball, the results would be dramatically different. The slanted wood is the confounding
variable that changes the outcome of the experiment.

References:
Lurking Variables:
https://www.statology.org/lurking-variables/
Compounding Variables:
https://www.softschools.com/examples/science/confounding_variable_examples/479/