15.41 Premarital doubts, divorce, and chi square: In an article titled “Do Cold Feet Warn of Trouble Ahead?, ” researchers studied 464 married heterosexual spouses to determine whether doubts before marriage were predictive of marital troubles, and divorce, later on (Lavner et al., 2012). The following is an excerpt from the results section of their paper: “For husbands, 9% of those who reported not having premarital doubts divorced by four years (n = 10 of 117) compared with 14% of those who did report premarital doubts (n = 15 of 106); these groups did not differ significantly, χ 2(1, n = 223) = 1.76, p > 0.10. Among wives, 8% of those who reported not having premarital doubts divorced by four years (n = 11 of 141) compared with 19% of those who did report premarital doubts (n = 16 of 84). Chi-square analyses indicated that these rates differed significantly, χ 2(1, n = 225) = 6.31, p < 0.05.′′

a. What are the variables in this study and what are their levels?

b. Explain why the researchers were able to use chi-square tests. Which kind of chi-square tests did they use?

c. What changes would the APA want to see in the reporting of these results?

d. Explain in your own words what the researchers found.