(1) I talk with my intro students about the misconception that mentally ill 
people generally have a history of violence. And the research evidence seems to 
support this. But in thinking about where the misconception comes from, would 
it not be correct to say that most people with a history of violence have had a 
mental illness? In other words, could one be violent or have unmotivated 
violence and not be mentally ill?

A more technical set of questions

(1) Is it proper to talk about independent and dependent variables in a 
correlational study? And to what extent? Isn't it *more* correct to call the 
variables predictor and criterion variables?What is the current status of this 
language?

(2) I have learned that a rule of thumb for evaluating the effect size of a 
significant correlation is to square r and this is a crude indicator of how 
much of 
the variability in the criterion variable comes from the predictor variable. 
I'd like 
to hear if this is too crude to be useable. Is there another, readily 
calculable 
effect size? I am very bothered by studies that make a big deal of a 
significant 
correlation of .2 or .3.

Thanks

Annette



 
Annette Kujawski Taylor, Ph.D.
Professor of Psychology
University of San Diego
5998 Alcala Park
San Diego, CA 92110
619-260-4006
[EMAIL PROTECTED]

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