Questions: Let's suppose that researchers who study social-emotional development from young adulthood to older adulthood found a correlation coefficient of -.75 between empathy and age. What conclusion would you draw from this finding? Older adults tended to have lower empathy scores than younger adults. Older adults tended to have higher empathy scores than younger adults. Older age causes adults to be more empathic. Older age causes adults to be less empathic.

Solution Steps

The correlation coefficient, denoted as \( r \), measures the strength and direction of a linear relationship between two variables. In this case, the correlation coefficient is \(-0.75\), which indicates a strong negative linear relationship between empathy and age.

A negative correlation means that as one variable increases, the other variable tends to decrease. Here, the negative correlation of \(-0.75\) suggests that as age increases, empathy scores tend to decrease.

Given the negative correlation, we can conclude that older adults tend to have lower empathy scores than younger adults. However, it is important to note that correlation does not imply causation, so we cannot conclude that age causes changes in empathy.

Final Answer