5.1: Sleep’s relationship to other variables (academics, mood, illness, personality)
Introduction to Psychology
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Topic: Sleep’s relationship to other variables (academics, mood, illness, personality)
Statistical Concepts Covered: In this applet, you’ll explore correlational data – data that show a relationship between two variables, but which cannot be used to make claims about causation. You will also think about the potential drawbacks of collecting data by asking individuals survey questions about their habits.
Question
5.1
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Introduction:
In Chapter 5 you read about the debate surrounding how much sleep you need. While you might think that you can function well on less and less sleep, studies show that there is a solid relationship between sleeping and learning and memory. In this activity, you will analyze data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, which measured adolescents on a wide range of variables including sleep habits and emotional and academic well-being. Nearly 5000 individuals were measured for the study, and you will analyze representative data from 500 of them to draw conclusions about how sleep (or lack thereof) can affect academic and social variables.
After you've completed the tutorial, click the button below to answer questions about what you've learned.
Questions
Questions
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1) Create a histogram that shows the distribution of reported hours of sleep for the students. How would you describe this distribution?
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2) The textbook cites a study (Stickgold et al., 2000) showing that a lack of sleep results in reduced learning if individuals are kept up all night. Does the same relationship hold if people are allowed to sleep, but just get less sleep? Generate a plot that shows the number of students (i.e. frequency) who report earning As in History classes based on their reported hours of sleep per night. Which of the following statements best describes the data?
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3) Looking at a graph of frequency data can sometimes lead to incorrect, or at least misleading conclusions. It could be that 8 hours of sleep is the magic number, and students who get too much or too little sleep perform worse in school. However, all we know from the data is that within the group that reported 8 hours of sleep per night, 46 of them earned As, and within the group that reported 5 hours of sleep per night, only two of them earned As. What is one potential problem with viewing the data this way? (Hint: Think about the graph you created for the first question in this exercise, too.)
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4) One way to account for the fact that there were many more students getting 8 hours of sleep per night than there were getting 5 (or 10) hours of sleep is to use percentages: What percentage of the students who got 8 (or 5, or 10) hours of sleep also earned As in History? Modify the graph to show the percentage of students who receive an A in History and note how the graph changes. Which of the following statements best describes these results?
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Statistical Lesson. It is important, when interpreting graphs that show frequency data, to think about the base rates: the underlying frequency of an event regardless of a secondary variable that you are studying. In this example, because most students report getting 7 or 8 hours of sleep per night, it shouldn’t be surprising that the number of students who earn As is higher in those categories. Looking at the data as percentages: what portion of all 8-hour sleepers earned As compared to what portion of all 10-hour sleepers earned As, can provide a less biased view of the underlying relationship. For the rest of these exercises, you should look at the frequency data, but always use the percentage data to draw your conclusions.
5) In the section on sleep deprivation, the authors state that “even for healthy young humans, a few hours of sleep deprivation can have a cumulative detrimental effect: reducing mental acuity and reaction time [and] increasing irritability and depression... (Coren, 1997)” Is this statement borne out by the data? Graph the relationship between hours of sleep per night and reports of “having the blues all the time.” What do the data show?