Re: Long Shot but....does anyone know anything about...

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Posted by sjm71505

I am getting my doctorate in psych too...so let's see if all those classes in stat paid off!

I would say that the correlation is the 'test' for linearity. If the correlation is signficant that means there is a significant relationship between the variables. If there is a curvilinear relationship, the correlation may come out to be insignficant because a product-moment corelation coefficient is sensitive to a LINEAR relationship between two variables . However, just because the P-Moment Coeff. is insignificant does not mean there is NO relationship between the variables. If you do a scatter plot, the curvilinear relationship may become more evident, which would then make your insignficant finding significant (in a nonstatistical sense). there may be some other test or analyses that can be done to see if the curvilinear relationship is signficant....but I don't know what it is off hand.
HTH
Now, if only I could get motivated to work on my dissertation

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I know that correlations do not equal linearity. They are too different things. I definitely think checking out the scatter plot is the way to go.