Describe the Third Variable Problem with a Suitable Example

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The Answer is Sometimes some other variable that has not been measured accounts for the relationship between two others.Researchers refer to this circumstance as the third variable problem.Third variable problem refers to a circumstance where a variable that has not been measured accounts for the relationship between two other variables.To understand the third variable problem, consider the following example.A researcher measures two variables: the number of ice-cream-cones sold in a town and the number of violent crimes that occur in that town throughout the year.The researcher finds that ice-cream-cone sales and violent crimes are positively correlated, to the magnitude of + .50.This high positive correlation would indicate that as ice cream sales increase, so does violent crime.Would it be reasonable for the local paper to run the headline "Ice-Cream Consumption Leads to Violence"? Should concerned citizens gather outside the local Frosty Freeze to stop the madness? Probably not.Perhaps you have already thought of the third variable that might explain this correlation-heat.Third variables are also called confounds.

Describe the Third Variable Problem with a Suitable Example

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