Question

Define Give an example of a spurious relationship. Give a short example of a spurious relationship and Eexplain why you believe it would be spurious

Answer 1

A spurious relationship or correlation is one which has no basis. Such relationship can be found because the two variables in question and correlated to a third variable.

Here is an example ...

Alice plots data for many nations of the world. She plots the percentage of people with cell phones on the x axis and the life expectancy in that nation on the y axis. She finds a strong positive correlation between these variables. She decides to embark on a global campaign to provide cell phones for everyone to increase life expectancy especially in poor nations.

Alice is making a statistical blunder here. Just because a strong positive correlation has been found between the variables, she has jumped to the conclusion that having cell phones will increase the life expectancy, which is not true. In fact, it absurd to think that possessing a cell phone would increase one’s life expectancy. Such correlations are said to be “spurious” and are usually due to a third (hidden) variable. Moreover, correlation does not prove causation. Alice is wrong in her interpretation.