Empirical Statistics: IV. Illustrating Meehl's Sixth Law of Soft Psychology: Everything Correlates with Everything
- 1 August 1991
- journal article
- research article
- Published by SAGE Publications in Psychological Reports
- Vol. 69 (1) , 123-126
- https://doi.org/10.2466/pr0.1991.69.1.123
Abstract
A 135 × 135 matrix of correlations was computed, using educational/biographical data on 2,058 subjects, to find the background level of statistically significant correlations, or Meehl's ‘crud factor.’ Every one of the 135 variables, save ID number, displayed more statistically significant correlations with the other variables than could be predicted from chance. With alpha set at .05 (two-tailed), a given variable correlated significantly on average with 41% of the other variables, although the absolute magrutude of the correlations averaged only .07. The results reinforce Meehl's 1990 criticisms of over-reliance on significance levels for correlational data.Keywords
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