Study: Are gender and fetish preferences independent or dependent?

[Sophie<3]

Hey guys!

As some of you may know, I'm studying psychology. I've only been doing it for two semesters, but I love it. And they're teaching us statistical analysis and I want to practice as much as possible.
Also, I want to go into academics and not become a therapist when I'm older, so conducting studies is what I'm interested in anyway! So I thought, why not involve you guys and hopefully find statistical answers to questions that I've been asking myself.

Of course, the set-up needs to be constructed in a way that makes it possible for me to actually analyze the data!  And I'm still pretty limited when it comes to statistical methods.
But I know how to do the chi square test of independence to test whether or not categorical variables are independent or not, so I thought why not try this.

As always, the more people take part, the better! There need to be at least five people for each cell in the contingency table! Otherwise, the data cannot be properly evaluated (or at least not with this test).

So, come on! Take part in the poll! It'll be super quick and maybe we'll get some interesting results!

Concerning the study:

It's going to be a 3x3 table for "colds, allergies, cannot decide" for fetish preferences and "male, female, other" for gender. I hope this is an exhaustive list of options and that everyone finds themselves represented in one of the choices! If you do not clearly prefer colds over allergies (or vice versa) for some reason, like, if you have to think really hard about which one you might prefer, please choose the "cannot make up my mind" option. Also, the third gender category is meant to include a wide range of people, namely anybody who does not feel comfortable identifying as solely male or solely female, so all you lovely agender, genderfluid, non-binary people and everyone else who doesn't fit the gender binary! I hope this option and wording is okay for everyone! It was meant to be inclusive and not to offend.  

If you see any problems with the set-up, entire idea or whatever, please let me know.

PS: I hope people don't think this is lame or weird.  I for one am exited! Haha!

[Elektra]

Cool. Could you add a preference for sneezing versus coughing depending on gender? I came in thinking coughing was an old guy thing and that I was the only young woman into it Or would it alter your study too much? Anyway I think it's cool ! Goodluck with that.

[Icarus Rex]

3 hours ago, Sophie<3 said:

PS: I hope people don't think this is lame or weird.  I for one am exited! Haha!

No way! I'm fully prepared to nerd out on fetish demographics at all times, and really excited that you asked in the way you did AND decided to make the results public. I feel like this question is as old as time, but has always been asked in a 2x2 format (male/female, colds/allergies), in the past, so it'll be cool to see what everyone says in a 3x3, where there's a lot less approximating going on.

[Guest]

I am rather interested in finding out the results myself! Also, I must say that this must be a rather fun way to apply your studies!  

[bloom]

Ahhhh, Sophie, you're speaking my language here! I loooove polls like this and I'm so glad to see one.  My only conundrum is whether my preference for allergies in women should usurp my lack of preference in cause for men and people of other genders...

4 hours ago, Elektra said:

Cool. Could you add a preference for sneezing versus coughing depending on gender? I came in thinking coughing was an old guy thing and that I was the only young woman into it Or would it alter your study too much? Anyway I think it's cool ! Goodluck with that.

This might be a good poll to start on your own! Though I do have to say that you will probably find that people almost exclusively prefer sneezing over coughing on the sneeze fetish forum.

Edited July 5, 2016 by Junia
i can never make a post without having to edit it. it's a curse. my cross to bear

[Kaze Wo Hiku]

This is really interesting I'm just having an issue with what to vote for since I do love a good cold but if I'm in the mood like allergies as well. I knows that's a both but half of me still wants to vote colds

 

[•.*°•☆. Q .☆•°*.•]

Dude i love this poll! 

[MaiMai]

This is such an awesome idea, Sophie! I'm pretty excited to see what the results are too!

(And I think you already know what my preference is.  )

[Kalla]

I'm just over here rooting for my guys, gals, and nonbinary pals on #TeamCold. 

"Our enthusiasm is infectious!"

[Anonymouse]

1 hour ago, Kalla said:

I'm just over here rooting for my guys, gals, and nonbinary pals on #TeamCold. 

"Our enthusiasm is infectious!"

I like that! Guys, gals, and nonbinary pals should totally be the new "ladies and gentlemen."

As for me... #Indecision2016. Where are my fellow noncommitals?

[Sophie<3]

Wow, thanks so much to everyone who has already voted! You're all awesome! And I'm so happy this was received so well!

So far, we have 3 categories with 5 votes or more. We need ALL categories to go up to that number, so COME ON AND VOTE! (Is this how you recruit test subjects, with all caps rage? Man, recruiting people is hard if you have no money to offer!  )

18 hours ago, Junia said:

22 hours ago, Elektra said:

Cool. Could you add a preference for sneezing versus coughing depending on gender? I came in thinking coughing was an old guy thing and that I was the only young woman into it Or would it alter your study too much? Anyway I think it's cool ! Goodluck with that.

This might be a good poll to start on your own! Though I do have to say that you will probably find that people almost exclusively prefer sneezing over coughing on the sneeze fetish forum.

Exactly. It wouldn't fit with this study, sorry, but you could always start your own.  But I agree with Junes. The great majority of people on here prefer sneezing, I think.  

21 hours ago, Icarus Rex said:

No way! I'm fully prepared to nerd out on fetish demographics at all times, and really excited that you asked in the way you did AND decided to make the results public. I feel like this question is as old as time, but has always been asked in a 2x2 format (male/female, colds/allergies), in the past, so it'll be cool to see what everyone says in a 3x3, where there's a lot less approximating going on.

Thanks!  And I'm glad you like the 3x3. I wanted to try and cover all possibilities.

18 hours ago, Kaze wo Hiku said:

This is really interesting I'm just having an issue with what to vote for since I do love a good cold but if I'm in the mood like allergies as well. I knows that's a both but half of me still wants to vote colds

Haha, sorry, Kaze, but that's definitely a both!  

6 hours ago, MaiMai said:

This is such an awesome idea, Sophie! I'm pretty excited to see what the results are too!

(And I think you already know what my preference is.  )

Thanks! And yes, I most certainly do!  

2 hours ago, AnonyMeows said:

I like that! Guys, gals, and nonbinary pals should totally be the new "ladies and gentlemen."

Haha! That's awesome!  

Also, Anony, pretty please commit? So we get the required number of votes? Just pick what you feel most describes you, even if it doesn't fit 100%, kay? Thanks!

 

[A440]

Here's a chart normalized by total number of gendered responders, so visual inspection of the results isn't thrown off by the way larger number of women than men/nb people responding to the poll. I also threw in some error bars based on the normal sqrt(N) histogram estimate, which should get smaller in future charts as more people respond to the poll.  Unfortunately, there's nothing you can do with something like this to account for selection bias....

Of course, with error bars this big you can't really come to many concrete conclusions, but I do think it's interesting that women seem much less likely to have no preference.

 

[Sophie<3]

1 minute ago, A440 said:

Here's a chart normalized by total number of gendered responders, so visual inspection of the results isn't thrown off by the way larger number of women than men/nb people responding to the poll. I also threw in some error bars based on the normal sqrt(N) histogram estimate, which should get smaller in future charts as more people respond to the poll.  Unfortunately, there's nothing you can do with something like this to account for selection bias....

Of course, with error bars this big you can't really come to many concrete conclusions, but I do think it's interesting that women seem much less likely to have no preference.

 

 

Um, dude? That's cool and all, and like I said, I was/am totally open to suggestions and comments, but still I started this thread because I wanted to do the study?  Like, do you remember me specifically saying that I am doing this because I want to get better at statistical analysis and practice??

[A440]

Oh, shit. I'm sorry -- I can delete that if you'd like. I went straight into "oh, cool! let me do things to this data!" and stepped right all over your toes. My bad, I apologize. But yeah, lmk if you want that deleted, I can totally do that. 

[Sophie<3]

Just now, A440 said:

Oh, shit. I'm sorry -- I can delete that if you'd like. I went straight into "oh, cool! let me do things to this data!" and stepped right all over your toes. My bad, I apologize. But yeah, lmk if you want that deleted, I can totally do that. 

Oh, you're fine! I can understand getting overenthusiastic when you come across exciting data. And the graphics are interesting, so you really don't have to delete them. Just let me wait til the numbers are high enough so I can do my little chi square test, alright?  Thanks.

[Bondi]

Cis-gendered male. I can enjoy colds or allergies, depending on my mood and various other factors.

[Anonymouse]

3 hours ago, Sophie<3 said:

Also, Anony, pretty please commit? So we get the required number of votes? Just pick what you feel most describes you, even if it doesn't fit 100%, kay? Thanks!

 

I did, I chose the option for female/can't decide. Hence noncommittal lol.

Maybe you can keep A440's response to check with yours? Think of their response as an answer bank? Obviously as more people vote it'll change but if you wanted to do it now and compare that's a good way to use that analysis. Or you can keep it and see how things change as latecomers cast their votes.

[•.*°•☆. Q .☆•°*.•]

#Noncommital here too nonny!! I find both so attractive i can't choose

[ginger1]

Where are my #TeamAllergy people though?! 

[Chanel_no5]

Just now, ginger1 said:

Where are my #TeamAllergy people though?! 

Right here!! *waves to be seen over the cold crowd*

[gingerdean]

29 minutes ago, Chanel_no5 said:

9 hours ago, ginger1 said:

Where are my #TeamAllergy people though?! 

Right here!! *waves to be seen over the cold crowd*

 

And here, too!! 

[smmoct3]

15 hours ago, gingerdean said:

 

And here, too!! 

I'm here!! 

Edited July 8, 2016 by smmoct3
I can't seem to figure out how to quote several people when I've been on here for 4 years

[Sophie<3]

Soo... I did some preliminary calculations and sadly, we have not reached significance yet. Basically, I got a chi square value of roughly 5.5, compared to a critical value of 9.488 (for 3x3, with alpha 0.05).

Our value has to be greater than the critical value for me to reject the null hypothesis (here stating that the traits are independent).

At this point in time, it looks like there is no dependence between fetish preferences and gender. HOWEVER: (1) I calculated everything by hand and I've been known to make stupid mistakes in the past  At some point, I'll probably use software to make sure! (2) all of my calculations are pretty much illegal and my statistics lecturer would kill me, because three categories are still below 5 and therefore the conditions for the chi square test of independence are not yet met and (3) I am confident that we might obtain significance with a greater n, because there are definitely some trends in the data! At some point, I'll post the expected frequencies for you and you'll see what I mean! There are noticeably more women with cold preferences and more men with allergy preferences than expected under independence of traits!

I feel like this is actually perfect preparation for my aspired future career because I've been told that this is what all researchers in psychology go through: working hard to recruit people and never finding enough, and hoping for significance, but not finding any!  

Either way, 70 people have participated already, which is amazing! Thanks so much everyone! <3 And if we could get just a few more, and get all categories above five, then I'll do a proper analysis and post the steps for you! Promise! *fingers crossed*

[Anonymouse]

4 hours ago, Sophie<3 said:

Soo... I did some preliminary calculations and sadly, we have not reached significance yet. Basically, I got a chi square value of roughly 5.5, compared to a critical value of 9.488 (for 3x3, with alpha 0.05).

Our value has to be greater than the critical value for me to reject the null hypothesis (here stating that the traits are independent).

At this point in time, it looks like there is no dependence between fetish preferences and gender. HOWEVER: (1) I calculated everything by hand and I've been known to make stupid mistakes in the past  At some point, I'll probably use software to make sure! (2) all of my calculations are pretty much illegal and my statistics lecturer would kill me, because three categories are still below 5 and therefore the conditions for the chi square test of independence are not yet met and (3) I am confident that we might obtain significance with a greater n, because there are definitely some trends in the data! At some point, I'll post the expected frequencies for you and you'll see what I mean! There are noticeably more women with cold preferences and more men with allergy preferences than expected under independence of traits!

I feel like this is actually perfect preparation for my aspired future career because I've been told that this is what all researchers in psychology go through: working hard to recruit people and never finding enough, and hoping for significance, but not finding any!  

Either way, 70 people have participated already, which is amazing! Thanks so much everyone! <3 And if we could get just a few more, and get all categories above five, then I'll do a proper analysis and post the steps for you! Promise! *fingers crossed*

BUMP 

What is your hypothesis, by the way?

[Kaze Wo Hiku]

Ok I FINALLY voted. And yes what is your hypothesis?