POLSC 200 Final Exam
Please answer each of the following questions in a document and drop them in Ilearn. Put all of the answers in the same document. You are welcome to use any resources that you like EXCEPT any other person. You may not ask any other person for help with this exam. Everything you turn in must be your own work.
Use the Mormonism(2014).dta file to answer all of the questions that require statistical analysis on this exam. These are real data. You are not authorized to use these data for anything other than this exam.
1.
The variable M18_10 measures how often the survey participant reads scriptures with their family. They had these options: “ Daily, A few times a week, A few times a month, A few times a year, or Never ”. I want a beautiful figure that shows me how many people gave each of these responses. Please create that figure in R and put it into a document.
2.
Underneath the figure, please write a paragraph interpreting the descriptive data.
3.
The variable WomPriest indicates whether the respondent is bothered that women in the LDS
Church do not hold the priesthood. The variable M19_4 indicates if the respondent is male or female. I want to know if women are more upset that women in the LDS Church do not hold the priesthood than men are. Conduct the appropriate statistical test and report the following a.
What is the null hypothesis? b.
What statistical test will you use? c.
What is the critical value? d.
What is the value of your test statistic? e.
What is your p-value? f.
What do you conclude? Are women more upset that only men can hold the Priesthood than are men?
4.
The variable M3_12_1measures attitudes about why people are chosen to serve in the Quorum of th e twelve. People who scored a four said that they thought it is because they “have the right connections”, those who score a one say it is because “they are called of God”. Use these variables M19_4, M18_6, M18_7 and M18_8 as independent variables in a model predicting attitudes on M3_12_1. M19_4 m easures the respondent’s gender; M18_6 measures if the respondent pays tithing; M18_7 measures if the respondent has a current temple recommend; and M18_8 indicated if the person keeps a supply of food storage. Please answer the following: a.
Least each of the independent variables that are significant predictors of M3_12_1. b.
What is the nature of the relationship between gender and M3_12_1? c.
If someone pays tithing, are they more likely to believe that the Quorum of the Twelve are called of God? d.
How much of the variation in attitudes about whether the Quorum of the Twelve are called of God is explained by these independent variables?
5.
Now, add PartyID to the model. a.
Is Party Identification a significant predictor of attitudes about whether the First
Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve are called of God? b.
Are members of one political party more likely to think that the Quorum of the Twelve is called because “they have the right connections”? If so, which political party?
c.
How much more variation in attitudes about whether the Quorum of the Twelve is called of God is explained by Party Identification?

6.
In the article, “Assortative Mating on Ideology Could Operate Through Olfactory Cues.”
McDermott et al. argue that people can smell other people’s political ideology and that this actually influences evaluations of how attractive the person is. This study was published in the
#2 Political Science journal three years ago and was covered by all of the major news networks from the New York Times to Fox News. I want you to evaluate the quality of the evidence in support of this argument. In doing so, make sure that you address each of the following: a.
How did they select their sample? b.
Who participated in the study. c.
How did the study isolate the effects of scent on attraction? d.
How did people evaluate the attractiveness of people? e.
How did each of these influence the internal and external validity of the study? f.
Which regression coefficients are statistically significant in Table 1? (They don’t use stars, so you will have to take their estimate and divide it by the standard error to calculate a t-score. Remember that in a two-tail test the T-score must be greater than
+/- 1.96 to be significant. In a one-tail test it is 1.67). g.
Did the authors make the appropriate conclusion based on the results? h.
Do you think that the findings presented in this article are “true”? Why or why not?
i.
What could the authors have done differently to be more persuasive in their argument?