Sunday, February 5, 2012

The big "O" stands for "omitted variable"

Yeah, about that Match.com survey (via John Sides)...
Republican Lead the Polls—In Orgasm

Yep, you heard that right. Republicans—and conservative Republicans, for that matter—reported the highest frequency of orgasm of all of the survey respondents, despite having the least amount of sex. More than half of those who identified as conservative Republicans said they reached climax almost every time they had sex, compared with just 40 percent of liberal Democrats. Sure, these answers are self-reported, but the survey was conducted anonymously online. What reason do they have to lie?
Well, there are plenty of reasons people would lie in an anonymous survey, particularly about such a subject. But did they think to control for gender?
Ideology                        Percent male
Extremely liberal                  37.3
Extremely conservative        53.2
(Source: ANES 2008)
What a shock -- the percentages who claim to have orgasms every time they have sex are almost the exact same percentages who happen to be men.

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