Recall from Chapter 11 the study by Aron and colleagues (2000, Study 1) in which 113 married people completed a newspaper survey about their relationships. The study participants completed a series of measures, including a single question regarding how exciting the things are that they do with their partner, a measure about their relationship quality, and a measure of boredom with the relationship. Aron and colleagues tested a mediational relationship that is outlined in the two study hypotheses. "Hypothesis 1: Shared participation in novel-arousing activities is associated with higher levels of experienced relationship quality. Hypothesis 2: This association is mediated by the extent to which the relationship is perceived as boring (versus exciting)". Here is how they reported the results of the study:
Regarding Hypothesis 1, as predicted, there was a strong positive association between responses to the exciting activities question and experienced relationship quality (r = .51, p Explain the method they used, and the actual results of the analysis, to a person who understands correlation and prediction but has never heard of mediational analysis.
In Figure 15-8

.51 Novel/Arousing Activities Relationship Quality .10 (b) Novel/Arousing Relationship Quality Activities -56 -74 Relationship Boredom