Why is correlation important in psychology

Because circumstances and participants can change in a study, researchers typically consider correlation instead of exactness.The closer the number is to 1 (be it negative or.A typical report of a correlation is based on one group of people, at one time, in one place.Therefore, when one variable increases as the other variable increases, or one variable decreases while the other decreases.The correlation coefficient is usually represented by the letter r.

This is another reason replication is important.Causation is the demonstration of how one variable influences.A correlation coefficient, often expressed as r, indicates a measure of the direction and strength of a relationship between two variables.Sometimes the data may actually represent a causal relationship, but there is no way of telling from the correlation coefficient alone.An example of positive correlation would be height and weight.

The method is also useful if researchers are unable to perform an experiment.