Solved – SPSS – How to analyse two categorical non-dichotomous variables

categorical dataspss

I'm having some issues running an analysis with two categorical variables that are both non-dichotomous…

Some background information on my study: My study focuses on how young adults sexually communicate in an online dating setting, and what influences them to do so. Participants are given a simulated online dating scenario where they see an online dater's profile (with a picture and a message), and then they are given the opportunity to reply to the profile.

What I'm having trouble with is analysing how the profile's message (sorted into 4 levels based on how 'sexy' it is) correlates to how the participants responds (also coded into 4 levels of how 'sexy' their response is). I hypothesise that the 'sexier' the profile's message is, the more 'sexy' the participant will respond. ​

So my two categorical variables are:
How sexy the profile's message is (4 levels)
How sexy the participants response is (4 levels)

What analysis should I run for this??

Best Answer

I think you want the Spearman correlation. This page has a discussion as well as how to perform the analysis in SPSS:

https://statistics.laerd.com/spss-tutorials/spearmans-rank-order-correlation-using-spss-statistics.php