Exercise 6.4: Assessing Causality

1. Consider the following story from Time Magazine (July 3, 2000, p. 53) concerning the city manager of Gardena, California and his use of "feng shui," the Chinese tradition of properly orienting oneself to his or her surroundings. Within three weeks after rearranging his office furniture and other objects in the room consistent with the advice of a feng shui advisor, acting manager Mitch Lansdell "...was promoted to full-time manager of Gardena, whose [struggling] economy then got a boost when Hustler magazine Larry Flynt bought a bankrupt casino there." Lansdell regularly employs feng shui practices on the job, including swiveling his chair to face the northeast when taking important phone calls. Do you think there is a causal relationship between the city manager's feng shui practices and his personal and professional achievements? Given what you know about the situation in Gardena, have the four conditions of causality discussed above been met? Why or why not?



2. Give an example of two variables, preferably involving politics, that you think are spuriously related. What third variable (antecedent variable) do you believe accounts for the change in the two original variables?



3. Consider the following hypothesis. Regardless of income, individuals with higher levels of education are more likely to vote in U.S. congressional elections than those with lower levels of education. Identify the independent, dependent, and control variables in the hypothesis. If we were to find one person in each U.S. state with a very high level of education who did not vote, would that lead you to reject this hypothesis? Why or why not?

a. independent variable: b. dependent variable: c. control variable: d. reject hypothesis: e. Why or why not?

4. Write and diagram a hypothesis using individuals as your unit of analysis that has an intervening variable.