1 Loading Libraries

# install.packages("apaTables")
# install.packages("kableExtra")

library(psych) # for the describe() command and the corr.test() command
library(apaTables) # to create our correlation table
library(kableExtra) # to create our correlation table

2 Importing Data

d <- read.csv(file="Data/projectdata.csv", header=T)

# For HW, import the your project dataset you cleaned previously; this will be the dataset you'll use throughout the rest of the semester

3 State Your Hypothesis

We predict there will be a significant relationship between perceived stress, depression, and mental wellbeing. Specifically, perceived stress will be positively related to depression, and both perceived stress and depression will be negatively related to mental wellbeing.

4 Check Your Variables

# you only need to check the variables you're using in the current analysis
# it's always a good idea to look them to be sure that everything is correct
str(d)
## 'data.frame':    649 obs. of  7 variables:
##  $ X     : int  520 2814 3146 3295 717 6056 4753 5365 2044 1965 ...
##  $ gender: chr  "female" "male" "female" "male" ...
##  $ pet   : chr  "cat" "other" "no pets" "no pets" ...
##  $ pss   : num  2.75 2.25 3 2 1.75 2 1 1.25 3 1.25 ...
##  $ phq   : num  1.56 1.44 1.11 1.33 1.44 ...
##  $ gad   : num  1.14 1.29 1 1 1.14 ...
##  $ swemws: num  3 2.86 4 3.57 3.86 ...
# Since we're focusing only on our continuous variables, we're going to subset them into their own dataframe. This will make some stuff we're doing later on easier.

d2 <- subset(d, select=c(pss, phq, swemws))

# You can use the describe() command on an entire dataframe (d) or just on a single variable (d$pss)

describe(d2)
##        vars   n mean   sd median trimmed  mad min max range  skew kurtosis   se
## pss       1 649 3.13 0.96   3.25    3.15 1.11   1   5     4 -0.11    -0.80 0.04
## phq       2 649 2.28 0.86   2.22    2.23 0.99   1   4     3  0.37    -0.92 0.03
## swemws    3 649 3.01 0.86   3.00    3.01 0.85   1   5     4  0.06    -0.43 0.03
# NOTE: Our fake variable has high kurtosis, which we'll ignore for the lab because we created it to be problematic. If you have high skew or kurtosis for any of your project variables, you will need to discuss it below in the Issues with My Data and Write up Results sections, as well as in your final project manuscript if your data does not meet the normality assumption.


# also use histograms to examine your continuous variables
# Because we are looking at 3 variables, we will have 3 histograms.

hist(d$pss)

hist(d$phq)

hist(d$swemws)

# last, use scatterplots to examine your continuous variables together, for each pairing
# because we are looking at 3 variables, we will have 3 pairings/plots. 

plot(d$pss, d$phq)

plot(d$pss, d$swemws)

plot(d$phq, d$swemws)

5 Check Your Assumptions

5.1 Pearson’s Correlation Coefficient Assumptions

  • Should have two measurements for each participant.
  • Variables should be continous and normally distributed.
  • Outliers should be identified and removed.
  • Relationship between the variables should be linear.

5.1.1 Checking for Outliers

Note: For correlations, you will NOT screen out outliers or take any action based on what you see here. This is something you will simply check and then discuss in your write-up.We will learn how to removed outliers in later analyses.

# We are going to standardize (z-score) all of our 3 variables, and check them for outliers.

d2$pss <- scale(d2$pss, center=T, scale=T)
hist(d2$pss)

sum(d2$pss < -3 | d2$pss > 3)
## [1] 0
d2$phq <- scale(d2$phq, center=T, scale=T)
hist(d2$phq)

sum(d2$phq < -3 | d2$phq > 3)
## [1] 0
d2$swemws <- scale(d2$swemws, center=T, scale=T)
hist(d2$swemws)

sum(d2$swemws < -3 | d2$swemws > 3)
## [1] 0

5.2 Issues with My Data

All three variables meet all of the assumptions of Pearson’s correlation coefficient. Perceived stress had acceptable kurtosis (-0.80) and no outliers. Depression had acceptable kurtosis (-0.92) and no outliers. Mental wellbeing had acceptable kurtosis (-0.43) and no outliers. Outliers can distort the relationship between two variables and sway the correlation in their direction, however, no outliers were identified in any of the variables. Additionally, all relationships appeared to be linear. Thereofre, Pearsons r is an appropriate test for exmaining the relationships among these variables.

6 Run a Single Correlation

corr_output <- corr.test(d2$pss, d2$phq)

7 View Single Correlation

corr_output
## Call:corr.test(x = d2$pss, y = d2$phq)
## Correlation matrix 
##      [,1]
## [1,] 0.73
## Sample Size 
## [1] 649
## These are the unadjusted probability values.
##   The probability values  adjusted for multiple tests are in the p.adj object. 
##      [,1]
## [1,]    0
## 
##  To see confidence intervals of the correlations, print with the short=FALSE option

8 Create a Correlation Matrix

corr_output_m <- corr.test(d2)

9 View Test Output

corr_output_m
## Call:corr.test(x = d2)
## Correlation matrix 
##          pss   phq swemws
## pss     1.00  0.73  -0.76
## phq     0.73  1.00  -0.74
## swemws -0.76 -0.74   1.00
## Sample Size 
## [1] 649
## Probability values (Entries above the diagonal are adjusted for multiple tests.) 
##        pss phq swemws
## pss      0   0      0
## phq      0   0      0
## swemws   0   0      0
## 
##  To see confidence intervals of the correlations, print with the short=FALSE option
# Remember to report the p-values from the matrix that are ABOVE the diagonal!

Remember, Pearson’s r is also an effect size! We don’t report effect sizes for non-sig correlations.

  • Strong: Between |0.50| and |1|
  • Moderate: Between |0.30| and |0.49|
  • Weak: Between |0.10| and |0.29|
  • Trivial: Less than |0.09|

10 Write Up Results

To test our hypothesis that stress, depression, and mental wellbeing would be correlated with one another, we calculated a series of Pearson’s correlation coefficients. All three of the variables met the required assumptions of the test, with all meeting the standards of normality and containing no outliers. Additionally, all vaiables appeared to have a linear relationship with one another. Therefore, all significant results should be interpreted normally.

As predicted, we found that all three variables were significantly correlated (all ps < .001). The effect sizes of all correlations were strong (rs > 0.5 #; Cohen, 1988). Additionally, Perceived Stress was found to be postively related to depression (r = .73), and negatively related to menal wellbeing (r = -.76), as predicted. Depression was also found to be negatively related to mental wellbeing (r = .74) as predicted. Please refer to the correlation coefficients reported in Table 1.

Table 1: Means, standard deviations, and correlations with confidence intervals
Variable M SD 1 2
Perceived Stress 3.13 0.96
Depression 2.28 0.86 .73**
[.69, .77]
Mental Wellbeing 3.01 0.86 -.76** -.74**
[-.79, -.73] [-.77, -.71]
Note:
M and SD are used to represent mean and standard deviation, respectively. Values in square brackets indicate the 95% confidence interval. The confidence interval is a plausible range of population correlations that could have caused the sample correlation.
* indicates p < .05
** indicates p < .01.

References

Cohen J. (1988). Statistical Power Analysis for the Behavioral Sciences. New York, NY: Routledge Academic.