BIVARIATE ANALYSIS

• Relationship between two variables
• Chi-Square
• Correlation (Pearson’s r)
• ANOVA (comparing group means)
• Regression
• Logistic regression (dependent variable is dichotomous)
• Always check significance level (is p < 0.05)

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Four methods for looking at patterns

• Discovering patterns
• Grounded Theory Method
• Semiotic
• Conversation Analysis

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With qualitative analysis you generally look for patterns or themes. There are six different ways to discover a pattern.

The book gives an excellent example using child abuse. So in the example:

• Frequency = How often does the child abuse occur?
• Magnitude = What are the levels of abuse? How brutal?
• Structures = Is it physical, mental, sexual? Are they related somehow?
• Processes = Do abuses begin with mental abuse and then move on to physical abuse? Or do these elements vary?
• Causes =What are the causes (independent variables) to abuse (Dependent variable)? Is it religious affiliation, socio-economic status, education level, family history?
• Consequences = How does the abuse change the victims and abusers?
• IF we had to write a hypothesis with abuse and and family history, how would we do that?
• People who have a family history of abuse are more likely to abuse.

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With Cross Case Analysis you look for patterns appearing across several observations that typically

represent different cases under study.

Two Strategies:

• Variable orientated you look for the interactions between different variables. For example, trying to
• determine why people chose to go to college. We would look at certain variables such as gender,
• socio-economic status, school performance, etc… and the people we observe
• (say people such as yourself) would be the carriers of the variables.
• The goal is to achieve a partial, overall explanation using only a few variables.
• This is an nomothetic explanation.
• Case Orientated
• with this we are looking more in an idiographic explanation (remember chapter 1)
• With this we want to understand more fully why someone would want to go to
• college so we study a single case.
• Using both of these in another example, if I used the variable orientated analysis to understand
• why you guys went to college I would study everyone here, but only look at certain this, did your
• parents go to college, what’s your gender, etc…If I wanted a in-depth explanation I would pick one of
• you out of class and study you a lot. Can I use the case orientated analysis to generalize to the
• whole class? Nope.

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With this method, you go in and have no idea what you’ll find.

Typically with the case orientated you already have a theory.

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This is an excellent method if you’re doing a document analysis –

perhaps looking at historical paintings or books.

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Figure 13-1 Matching Signs and their Meanings

Uses of this are many. For example, used to determine how doctors and medical workers

interacted with patients. Found that they tended to be information only, without giving advice.

RESEARCH PAPER (FULL DRAFT) 1

Comparison of Feeling of happiness Between the United States and Yemen

Lam Ho Yung

Oregon State University

PS 300

Introduction 

Yemen being one of the countries in the middle east is known for its experiencing civil wars from time to time. It has also gotten itself into humanitarian crisis for a long period of time that has led to loss of many lives and adverse effects to the economy and hence people in the country have to struggle to have their ends meet and get the deserved level of peace that results in reduced levels of happiness to the citizens of the country. On the other hand, the United  States is one of the most peaceful states in the globe. It has only experienced attacks from terror cases some decades back, the country then experienced some economic rise from time.

I chose this topic out of the experience of the citizens in the middle east countries having a past characterized by wars of different kinds while the United  States as opposed to Yemen has been experiencing peace apart from countable cases of terror attacks. Therefore, my interest was to compare the feeling of happiness amongst the United  States citizens and those of Yemen. Data from World based survey was used to partake the research study, specifically the data from survey of “V10”  the feeling of happiness and “V185 ” the worries of a civil war retrieved from a codebook of world values. The resulting data was analyzed using the chi-square tests with interpretation of results and conclusion given thereafter.

Literature review 

According to research it’s documented that the effect of war on happiness is normally immense. Statistics indicate that at least 191 million people have faced death as a result of the war in the twentieth century, (Iqbal, 2006: 631).

A huge number of people experienced severe injuries and were left disabled and hence their lives were filled with suffering for their entire lives since they depended on others for their survival. Hence such people who have undergone such traumatizing scenarios in their lives have a lower probability of being happy.

Additionally, war affects the level of the economy of the country, cultural heritage, infrastructure in the country is negatively affected since there are no developments. Further, the GDP of the country experiencing wars drops by 2.2% annually compared to any other nation not experiencing wars, (Coupe, 2016). The lives of citizens of the affected country go down and live by extreme suffering trying to make ends meet in order to survive. Consequently, the lives of people whose countries have experienced wars are more likely to be sorrowful, sad, and full of struggles as compared to the nations that are peaceful, (Koubi, 2005. P.69).

Wars can be as a result of geographical boundary conflicts among states or clans in the same country. Differences in political interest also result in fights and eventually wars that affect the entire country as in the case for Yemen where political conflicts arose between the government and the armed movement, (Niclas, 2011: p.458). Wars increase the level of anxiety and fear in the population. And hence negative national stress experienced by citizens of the country affects the happiness of its citizens, (Frey, 2011).

According to (Welsch, 2008), wars could result from the following areas, civil wars, terrorism where a particular group is targeted with the aim of creating havoc, and building up fear as to what happened to the US in 2011.

Finally, certain events and countries. Wars reduce the economic well-being of people, resulting in fear, agony for losing loved ones, suffering for those left with injuries, and those whose parents are killed, (Frey, 2018). This reduces the level of happiness amongst the affected and it is difficult for one to regain happiness.

As a result, this research paper was aimed at comparing the impact of war on the feeling of happiness of a country by comparing two states which are the United  States, (Sachs, 2017) and Yemen that are on two extreme ends of peace. This paper compared the feeling of happiness in the US which is known to experience fewer wars and feeling of happiness es in Yemen which is known to have experienced and still experiencing wars due to political conflicts.

Hypothesis 

The research study will have two hypothesis statements. Base on the background, my hypothesis is that there is a correlation between feeling of happiness and worry of a civil war, and Americans are happier than Yemeni because they worry less about a civil war. The results will be verified using the ANOVA test. The data was categorized according to the extreme expectations of the happiness or worry experienced by people of the two countries. For instance, from “Figure 1” which is a report for the United State and “Figure 2” is the report for Yemen.

Data and Methods 

I used the world values codebook survey that contained “V10” the feeling of happiness and “V185” worries of a civil war. Random sampling methods to get the people who responded to the questions was done and questionnaires given for questions to be answered. Where random sampling each citizen had an equal chance of responding to the questions. The questions in the questionnaires had options from which the respondent picked according to their satisfaction in the answer. Not all respondents gave all answers as expected an assumption was made that the answers given were right.

The data set was applied to get people views from the two countries in question concerning their level of happiness or worries. For example, the options to the answers were given according to the expected levels of satisfaction in happiness and worries. The data was given in frequencies and crosstabs according to the number of people that responded to a certain level of happiness or worry.

Finding and results

From the conducted analysis, the people responded to both ends of either happiness or worries. I will expect the people who worry more about the civil war are less happy then worry less. The mean of the United State between American feeling of happiness and worries of civil war is 2.10, 1.90, 1.74 and 1.59. Who worries about a civil war Very much, A great deal, Not much and Not at all. For those responders from Yemen, the value of mean is 2.10, 2.26, 2.50 and 3.50. (See figure 1 and 2.) In the result that shows responders in the United State who are very worry about civil war that tend in “2” rather happy and “3” not very happy. The responders who are not at all worry that tend in “1” very happy and “2” rather happy. However, the data shows Yemenis who worries a civil war very much that tend to “2” rather happy and “3” not very happy. Responders who are not at all worries about a civil war in Yemen that tend in “3” not very happy and “4” Not at all happy. Which is not consistent with the data we saw in the United States. I cannot explain why Yemenis who are not worry civil war are not happy. I can only tell that according to the data, there is a correlation between feeling of happiness and worries of civil war. In Yemen, people who are not worry about civil war are less happy then people who worry more about civil war. (See figure 3 and 4).

Therefore the p-value of United State is 0.005, and Yemen is 0.043. Both countries are below 0.05, which means that it is statistically significant. It agree with my expectation that the less worry about civil war people are, the happier they are. Meanwhile, on both effect size of 0.237 and 0.282, indicating that it is weak to moderate between feeling of happiness and worries of a civil war in the United States and Yemen. (See figure 3 and 4).

Figure 1:

Figure 2:

Figure 3

Figure 4

Discussion/ Conclusion

From the findings we can concluded the people of the United  States are seen to be happier compared to the people in Yemen. They are also less worry the civil war. In America people who worry more about civil war are less happy. Worries in Yemen could be resulting from the wars the citizens often experience and the level of their economy which is usually affected by the frequent fights. However, in Yemen the opposite but overall the Yemenis they more worry and they are less happy.

Thus, I believe that my hypothesis is correct. It’s evident that the level of happiness in the United  States is high hence a few people expressed worries as compared to the number of people in Yemen that indicated a high level of worries compared to them being happy. The people that indicated high levels of happiness in the United  States were more compared to Yemen. This could be as a result of the stable economy in the country and a smaller number of wars experienced.

Work Cited

The Evolution of World Happiness 2005-2018. World Happiness Report (2019). https://worldhappiness.report/ed/2019/changing-world-happiness/,

Semantic Scholar Frey, Bruno S. “Peace, war and happiness: Bruder Klaus as wellbeing facilitator.” International Journal of Wellbeing 1.2 (2011).

Frey, B. S. (2018). Happiness and War. In Economics of Happiness (pp. 63-70). Springer, Cham.

Guriev, Sergei, and Nikita Melnikov. “Happiness convergence in transition countries.” Journal of Comparative Economics 46.3 (2018): 683-707.

Coupe, T., & Obrizan, M. (2016). The impact of war on happiness: The case of Ukraine. Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 132, 228-242.

Berggren, Niclas, and Christian Bjørnskov. “Is the importance of religion in daily life related to social trust? Cross-country and cross-state comparisons.” Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization 80.3 (2011): 459-480.

SACHS, J. D. (2017). Restoring American happiness. World Happiness Report 2017, 178.

Iqbal, Z., & Zorn, C. (2006). Sic Semper Tyrannus? Power, repression, and assassination since the Second World War. The Journal of Politics, 68(3), 489-501.

Koubi, V. (2005). War and economic performance. Journal of Peace Research, 42(1), 67-82.