Correlation Analysis – How to Test Significant Difference Between Two Correlations in Independent Groups

correlation

I read a paper recently where the author compared the correlation coefficients (Pearson) between household budget and the type of meat purchased by male and female shoppers.

So the correlation is between household budget and meat type purchase for males versus the same for females (i.e. comparison by gender).

The author concluded that the "two correlation coefficients differ significantly".

I have difficulty understanding what this mean. Can someone explain this in simple English?

(Sometimes in the complexity of statistical analysis, we tend to get confused on the basics!)

Best Answer

The relation between meat type and household budget is of significantly different size.

It could interpreted such that males and females significantly differ in their behaviour considering what kind of meat they purchase depending on their available household budgets.

It is a bit difficult to construct an example, as I do not know how meat type is measured. But, one example supposing that meat type is an ordinal measure of meat quality: A significantly higher correlation coefficient for females could mean that when deciding what quality of meat to purchase, females are more likely to take the houshold budget into consideration, i.e. they buy cheaper meat if the budget is low, whereas for males, if the correlation coefficient is significantly smaller, they are less likely to choose poor meat if their budget is low, or they switch to not that much worse meat if their budget is low.