Question

1. What are the three criteria that must be met in order to infer causality?

Answer 1

CcccThe three classic criteria necessary to support a causal inference, according to the philosopher John Stuart Mill, are: (1) association (correlation), (2) temporal order, and (3) nonspuriousness. The criterion of association requires that there is a systematic relationship between the cause and effect variables. This criterion is by far the easiest to determine. The second criterion of temporal order is a bit more complicated. The temporal order criterion requires that the cause, or more precisely variation in the cause variable, must occur before the observed variation in the effect variable. The third criterion of nonspuriousness is by far the most difficult to achieve. This criterion requires that the observed relationship between the cause and the effect variables must not be due to other omitted or unmeasured third variables. Using the relationship between delinquent peers and offending as an example, this criterion requires that this relationship cannot be due to homophily or any other potential explanation.