correlation is used to study or determine the strength or association of the relationship between two or more variables. The key terms for correlation are association and relationship between the variables of interest. For example, a business analyst working in a bank may want to measure the relationship between number of bank services and number of years as a customer. In this example, length of being a customer doesn't cause the number of (or which) bank services one may utilize. Further, we need to be very cautious to not use the phrase cause-and-effect with correlation or regression as it only measures an association or relationship. In fact, statistically, we find strong correlations between two variables that aren't meaningful all the time. You may have read about the positive correlation between drowning rates and eating ice-cream. In order to show a true cause-and-effect relationship between two (or more) variables there are three conditions that must be met.

Can you think of the mediating variable that can explain the correlation between drowning rates and eating ice cream? Also, what three conditions must be met in order to show causation?