Question

You are studying homicide rates in a major city, and your data seem to be indicating something quite peculiar. You notice that ice cream consumption seems to be correlated with an increase in murder rates. Upon more careful reflection, you recall that murder rates tend to rise in the summer, when people are outside more (and, consequently, eating more ice cream). Your first conclusion is an example of __________.

Answer 1

spurious relation.

Step-by-step explanation:

Here, we are trying to find if there is some variable that affects the homicide rates in the city i.e., we are trying to find the independent variable that causes a change in the dependent variable (homicide rate).

While looking through the data we notice that the as the ice cream rate of consumption increases the number of homicides increases.

We conclude that the increased rate of ice cream consumption increases the homicide rate. The ice cream consumption is a confounding variable i.e., a variable that looks like it is causing a change in the dependent variable.

A relation that is derived from a confounding variable is called a spurious relation.

Later, we find the actual dependent variable which is the season.