pr STATS project MA 1020 - PROJECT A .docx

pr
STATS
project
MA 1020 - PROJECT
A study of the impact of parental relationships on the children’s
love
relationships and outlook on marriage
1
TA B L E OF C ON TE N T S
SUMMARY/ABSTRACT
...............................................................................................
............................................................ 2
Part I - INTRODUCTION
...............................................................................................
........................................................... 3
PART II - METHODS

...............................................................................................
.................................................................. 4
OUR POPULATION
...............................................................................................
........................................................... 4
OUR VARIABLES
...............................................................................................
............................................................... 4
SAMPLE AND STATISTICAL PROCEDURES
...............................................................................................
........... 5
PART III –
RESULTS...............................................................................
.................................................................................... 6
OUR SAMPLE RESULTS - Descriptive Statistics
...............................................................................................
........ 6
Age
...............................................................................................
.......................................................................................... 6
GENDER
...............................................................................................
................................................................................ 7
Parents’ Status
...............................................................................................
................................................................... 7
STUDENTS INVOLVED in a relationship

...............................................................................................
................. 8
Duration of relationships in general
...............................................................................................
......................... 8
number of relationships
...............................................................................................
................................................ 9
Types of relationships
...............................................................................................
................................................. 10
Desire to marry in the future
...............................................................................................
.................................... 10
Adjectives associated with marriage
...............................................................................................
..................... 11
ASSOCIATIONS
...............................................................................................
.................................................................... 12
THE ASSOCIATIONS WITH GENDER
...............................................................................................
..................... 12
THE ASSOCIATIONS WITH PARENTAL STATUS
.............................................................................................
13
ADDITIONAL ASSOCIATIONS FOR CHILDREN OF

DIVORCED PARENTS ............................................. 19
Additional ASSOCIATIONS FOR CHILDREN WITH
MARRIED PARENTS............................................... 21
INFERENCES TO THE POPULATION
...............................................................................................
.......................... 22
SINGLE VARIABLES
...............................................................................................
...................................................... 22
ASSOCIATIONS
...............................................................................................
............................................................... 23
CONCLUSION
...............................................................................................
............................................................................ 25
2
S U MMA R Y /A B S T R A C T
The following project aims to find the impact that parents’
marital status may have on their
children’s love relationships and opinion about marriage. As a
result, the project intended

to find if children, whose parents got divorced, have the same or
a different perception of
marriage and relationships, compared to children, whose parents
are still together. We
collected randomly data from a population of students and had a
sample of 81 students. The
students filled out an online questionnaire. The parents’ marital
status had less impact that
what we expected. With an alpha 10%, the type of relationship
sought by the children
(pvalue=0.0826) was found to be significantly associated with
the parents’ relationship status.
Also, with an alpha of 5% both the capacity to trust partners
(pvalue=0.0277) and the desire to
marry in the future (pvalue=0.0298) were found to have a
significant association with the parents’
relationship status. The other variables were found to be
independent of the parents’ marital
status.
3

PA R T I - I N TR O D U C TI ON
For our project, we decided to research on a subject directly
related to our experience. As
young adults, we are in the process of forming opinions about
marriage, expectations about how
our partners usually react and while some are ready to engage in
long lasting relationships, others
seem to prefer short-lived relations. With friends, we always
talk about our romantic adventures
and our hopes and we sometimes realize how drastically
different our expectations or our
experiences may be from theirs.
However, as we are trying to achieve independence and to find
our personal values and
goals for our love relationships and the rest of our lives, reading
the works of psychologists
makes us realize how much early experience is crucial in
forming what we will dare to dream and
believe. Then, we thought: “Could some of our expectations
with our partners come from what
we saw from our parents’ love relationship as children?
Wouldn’t it be nice to know how much

early experience is shaping our opinion on marriage and on
romantic relationships in general?”
Of course, a lot of other factors will play out to create one’s
high distrust or trust of marriage and
one’s general outlook on love, but we felt the influence of
parental love relationship was a
possible factor of particular interest to us.
As a result, we decided to test if there was a link between the
actual and perceived
stability of parental love relationships and the opinions about
marriage and trends in love
relationships of the children. We hypothesized that the
existence of stable parental relationships
will be correlated with a positive and favorable outlook on
marriage on the part of the children.
On the contrary, a divorce between the parents will be
correlated to a negative outlook on
marriage on the part of the children. Our third hypothesis was
that gender will not impact the
children’s outlook toward marriage and their relationships.

4
PA R T I I - ME TH O DS
OUR POPULATION
Our population of interest is the students between 15 and 30
years old who are currently studying
in France. We are equally interested in French and international
students. The unit of analysis
will be the students.
OUR VARIABLES
The variables we will investigate can be separated into
independent and dependent variables. The
independent variables we will assess are:
arried,
etc.)
with their new partner as
applicable)

The dependent variables we will assess are, students’:
uration
Moreover we are also tried to take into account different factors
depending on whether the
parents are separate or still together. For example, for divorced
parents, we have tried to assess
variables such as if the parents are now on friendly term. For
parents who are still together, we
have asked if their relationship is stable. Those variables might
explain part of the variation in the
data; it will be interesting to see if they really seem to explain
some of the variance in our results.
5

SAMPLE AND STATISTICAL PROCEDURES
Our sample is taken randomly from our acquaintances (simple
random sampling). We have put
the questionnaires on Facebook and sent it to our friends and we
have told them to send the
questionnaires to their own circle of acquaintances. As a result,
the sample is made of
international students (mainly from AUP) and of French
students both from AUP and from
French universities in Paris. Because of our sampling method,
the sample is likely to be
representative of students coming from the middle and higher
middle classes.
The data has been collected through two identical self-report
questionnaires (one in French and
one in English) to be filled online. 61 people answered our
French questionnaire and 20 people
answered our English questionnaire making our sample to be of
81 students in total. The
questionnaire in French can be found at
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/viewform?fromEmail=true
&formkey=dHEzbVpOQVRqQk

NEN2hxdllMZG1SX2c6MQ
. The adjectives associated with marriage were classified into 3
categories: positive, negative and
neutral.
We used the t-test in datadesk to estimate the intervals for µ
with a 95% confidency
intervals for quantitative single variables, π was also estimated
for some categorical
variables; we used chi^2 tests and pooled t tests to test bivariate
associations’ significance
in the population.
6
PA R T I I I – R E S U L TS
OUR S AMPLE RESULTS - DESCR IP TIVE S TATIS TI CS
AGE
Here, we decided to focus on the age of our sample in order to

have a better understanding of the
answers.
In this sample, we have quantitative data, with n=81 and range
going from 15 to 30 years old.
The histogram above shows that the distribution of the sample
is unimodal with Mo= 22 and pretty
symmetrical. The mean (Xbar=21.79) and the median (M=22)
are almost similar, which confirms
the theory that the data are symmetrical. 50% of the data are
between 20 and 23 years old.
From the box plot below, we can see that there are two outliers,
29 and 30 years old.
7
GENDER
Gender Frequency %
F 48 59%
M 33 41%
n=81 100%

PARENTS’ STATUS
Status Frequency %
Divorced 21 26
Married 60 74
n=81
59%
41%
Gender
F
M
0
20
40
60
F M

Gender
26%
74%
Divorced
Married
In our sample, we had the chance to have a
quite similar proportion of males (41%)
and females (59%)
8
74% of the individuals gathered in our project have their
parents still married.
STUDENTS INVOLVED IN A RELATIONSHIP
Involved in a
relationship
Count %
no 51 62.963
yes 30 37.037

DURATION OF RELATIONSHIPS IN GENERAL
63%
37%
Involved in a
relationship
no
yes
37% of the students are involved in a
relationship, while 63% are single
9
We realized that most of the students (26%) were involved in
relationships that lasted more than
one year, while only 21% were usually involved in relationships

lasting between 0 and 1 month.
NUMBER OF RELATIONSHIPS
Summary of # of relationships
Count 81
Mean 3.2963
Median 3
MidRange 15
MidQRang 2.5
Variance 14.4361
StdDev 3.79949
Min 0
Max 30
Range 30
Lower ith %tile 1
Upper ith %tile 4
21%

18%
14%
21%
26%
General length of relationships
0-1 months 1-3 months 3-6 months
6 months -1 year a year or more
In this sample;
We notice that data varies between 0 to 30
relationships. It is unimodal (mode is 3
relationships) skewed to the right with 3
outliers. Half of students have had between 1
and 4 previous relationships and one forth has
more than 4.
The average of relationships is 3.2 with average
dispersion around it of 3.79.
According to the box plot, we have three
outliers: 8, 12 and 30 relationships
10

TYPES OF RELATIONSHIPS
69% of the students are looking for serious relationships while
31% prefer flirts.
DESIRE TO MARRY IN THE FUTURE
31%
69%
Types of
relationships
for fun
serious

Total Cases 81
Kind of relationship Count %
for fun 25 30.864
serious 56 69.136
58% of the students want to get married in the future, while
only 12% are against the
idea and 30% do not know
11
ADJECTIVES ASSOCIATED WITH MARRIAGE
Adjective
associated
Count
%

negative 17 20.988
neutral 11
13.58
positive 53 65.432
n=81
12%
30%
58%
Getting married in
the future
I am against
the idea
maybe
yes
0
20
40
60
I am
against the

idea
maybe yes
Getting married in the
future
Count
0
20
40
60
negative neutral positive
Adjectives associated
with marriage
21%
14%
65%
Adjectives associated
with marriage
negative
neutral
positive

We can see that 65% of the students associate marriage with a
positive adjective, while
21% describe marriage with negative adjective. 14% of the
adjectives were neutral.
12
ASSOCIATIONS
THE ASSOCIATIONS WITH GENDER
The desire to marry in the future, the kind of words associated
with marriage and the kind
of relationships sought were found to be independent of gender.
In fact, the association between gender and the desire to marry
in the future is
almost null with a Cramer number of 0.082. On the bar chart
the proportionalities are
similar and the expected and observed counts are very similar.
Also, the association in this sample between gender and the
kind of adjective
attached to marriage is almost null with a Cramer number of
0.047.
We notice this: On the bar charts, the proportionalities are
similar. The expected and

observed counts are also very similar.
0%
20%
40%
60%
80%
100%
F M
Desire to marry and gender
yes
maybe
I am against the
idea
13
Finally, the association between gender and kind of
relationships sought is

almost null with a Cramer number of 0.044. On the bar charts,
the proportionalities are
similar. The expected and observed counts are also very similar.
THE ASSOCIATIONS WITH PARENTAL STATUS
Expected age for marriage, adjective describing marriage and
talking about marriage
with a previous partner were found to be quite independent of
parental status. Number of
previous relationships, the type of relationship sought, trust
toward partners, desire to
marry in the future and the role in initiating of talks about
marriage were found to have
some association with parental status.
The parental status seems to be a bit correlated to the number
of previous
relationships. The average number of relationships for children
of divorced parents is of
approximately 2.72 while the average number of relationship for
children of married
parents is of approximately 3.508. The variances are
homogeneous (17.49<6.207*5).

0%
50%
100%
F M
Gender and kind of
relationship
serious
for fun
0%
50%
100%
F M
Gender and kind of adjectives
positive
neutral
negative
14

The parental status has a low association (Cramer number of
0,223) with the general
length of the children’s relationship. The proportionalities in
the bar chart is a bit different
and the expected and observed counts are also a bit different.
There is some association
between the two variables.
0
50
F
re
q
u
e
n
cy
Number of relationships
Married
0

10
20
0 3 6 9 MoreF
re
q
u
e
n
cy
Number of relationships
Divorced
15
There is no association between the parental status and the time
spent in the current
relationship (here, n=31). The mean and median are very similar
for samples of students
with divorced and married parents. The variances are
homogeneous.

0
20
40
60
80
divorced married
General lengths of
relationships versus
parental status
a year or
more
6 months -1
year
3-6 months
1-3 months
0
2
4

6
0.75 2.166666667 3.583333333 ou plus...
F
ré
q
u
e
n
ce
Length of actual relationship in years
Divorced
0
5
10
15
0.1667 2.375025 4.58335 6.791675 ou plus...
F
ré
q
u

e
n
ce
Length of actual relationship in years
Married
16
The parental status has a low association (ф=0,1929) with the
type of relationships
sought by the children. Moreover, the bar chart shows children
with married parents are
more likely to look for serious relationships. The expected and
observed counts are quite
different. It suggests there is an association.
The parental status has a low association (ф=0,2446 <0.3) with
the trust of the
children toward their partners. Moreover, children with married
parents tend to trust more
their partners. The expected and observed counts are quite
different. It suggests there is an

association.
0
20
40
60
80
divorced married
Type of relationship sought
depending on parental statuses
serious
for fun
0
20
40
60
80
divorced married
Trust toward the partner versus

parental status
yes
no
17
The parental status has a medium association with the
children’s desire to marry in
the future with a Cramer number of approximately 0.3. The
children with married parents
are more in favor of becoming married in proportion to the
children of divorced parents.
The proportionalities on the bar chart are quite different.
Expected and observed counts are
also quite different.
Interestingly, parental status and the expected age for marriage
have only a low
association (Cramer of 0.13) and the proportionalities of the bar
chart and expected and
observed counts are quite similar. Those two variables seem to
be less associated than the
previous ones of this section.

The parental status and the kind of adjectives chosen by the
children to describe
marriage are independent. The Cramer number is of 0.06. The
proportionalities in the bar
chart and the expected and observed counts are quite similar.
0
20
40
60
80
divorced married
desire to marry versus parental
status
yes
maybe
I am against
the idea
0
20

40
60
80
divorced married
Expected age of marriage versus
parental status
35-40
30-35
25-30
20-25
18
The parental status and the fact children have already talked
about marriage with
one of their partners are independent. In fact, the ф number is
of 0.03. The proportionalities
in the bar chart and the expected and observed counts are quite
similar.

Last but not least, the students having already talked about
marriage with one of
their partners (n=21) were selected and the association between
parental status and who
initiated the discussion was investigated. These two variables
were found to have a medium
association (Cramer number of 0.408). The bar chart shows that
children of married
parents tended to initiate more the discussion about marriage
than children of divorced
parents. The expected and observed numbers are quite different.
0
20
40
60
80
divorced married
Kind of adjective to describe marriage
and parental status
positive

neutral
negative
0
20
40
60
80
divorced married
Discussion about divorce with
partner versus parental status
yes
no
0
10
20
30
divorced married
Initiating the discussion about
marriage and parental status

our initiative
my initiative
19
Then we tried to investigate how other factors related to the
parental situation
(divorced or married) could explain the different outcomes in
the dependent variables of
the children. Expected age for marriage, adjective describing
marriage and talking about
marriage with a previous partner were found not to be
associated with parental status so
we didn’t keep them in our analysis of associations with those
additional factors.
To see the impact of those additional factors, we decided to see
their influence on the desire
to marry in the future and the capacity of children to trust in
their partners.
ADDITIONAL ASSOCIATIONS FOR CHILDREN OF
DIVORCED PARENTS
For children of divorced parents, we hypothesized that if the
parents were now on

friendly terms, it would account for children being more
inclined to marry and having more
trust in their partners.
CURRENT SITUATION BETWEEN PARENTS
(FRIENDLY/NOT FRIENDLY)
The parents being on friendly terms has only a low association
with the children’s
trust in their partner (association: Cramer number of 0.168) and
their desire to marry
(association: Cramer number of 0.236).
For these two variables, the bar charts show that the
proportionalities are a bit different
and that the expected and observed counts are a bit different.
no yes
yes 4 5
no 8 5
0
5
10
15

Trust toward partners versus
parents on friendly terms
yes
no
20
STABILITY OF PARENTS ’ CURRENT RELATIONSHIP
The stability of the parents’ current relationship seems to have
some association
with the children’s trust in their partner and their desire to
marry.
proportionalities are quite different
and that the expected and observed counts are quite different.
0
5
10
15
no yes

Desire to marry versus parents on
friendly terms
yes
maybe
I am against the
idea
0
5
10
15
no yes
Stability of parents' new relationship
versus children's trust in partner
N/A
5
4
3
2
1

21
ADDITIONAL ASSOCIATIONS FOR CHILDREN WITH
MARRIED PARENTS
For children with married parents, we hypothesized that the
stability of the parent’s
relationship as it is perceived by the children will be
significantly associated with the
children’s trust in their partners and the children’s desire to
marry in the future.
STABILITY OF PARENTAL RELATIONSHIP
The stability of the parent’s relationship was found to be
associated with both the
children’s trust in their partners and the children’s desire to
marry in the future.
proportionalities are quite different
and that the expected and observed counts are quite different.
0
2
4

6
8
10
I am against
the idea
maybe yes
Stability of parent's desire to marry
versus children's desire to marry
N/A
5
4
3
2
22

INFEREN CES TO THE PO PULATION
SINGLE VARIABLES
0
10
20
30
40
no yes
Stability of parents' relationship versus
trust in partner
5
4
3
1
0
10
20
30

40
I am against
the idea
maybe yes
Stability of parents' relationship versus
desire to marry
5
4
3
1
23
The average age of our population is between 21.26 and 22.23
years old with a 95% confidency
interval.
We estimated for the population the percentage of males with a
95% confidency interval:
P=0.41
1-p= 1-0.41=0.59
The counts of successes and the counts of failures were both
superior to 5.
SE=√

( )
z=1.96
The % of males in the population belongs to (0.302;0.517) with
a 95% confidency interval.
We followed the same steps to estimate the % of students with
married parents in the population
and the % of students who were interested by having serious
relationships. The % of students with
married parents in the population belongs to (0.644;0.836) with
the 95% confidency interval. The
% of students interested in having serious relationships in the
population belongs to (0.589;0.791)
with a 95% confidency interval.
The average number of previous relationship in the population
was estimated to be between 2.456
and 4.136 with a 95% confidency interval.
ASSOCIATIONS
It was investigated if the variables of gender and the desire to
marry were predicted to be
independent when an inference was made to the population.
Ho: Gender and desire to marry are two independent variables
H1: Gender and the desire to marry are significantly associated
Expected counts were found to be superior or equal to 1. The
pvalue was found through datadesk.

Pvalue = 0.7595
Therefore, the Ho hypothesis cannot be rejected. Gender and the
desire to marry have no
significant association in the population.
The same thing was done for all the pairs of two categorical
variables. It was found that the
desire to marry, the kinds of adjective used to describe marriage
(pvalue=0.9136) and the
24
kind of relationship preferred by the children (pvalue= 0.69)
had no significant association with
gender.
The kinds of adjective used to describe marriage
(pvalue=0.8634), talking about marriage
with a previous partner (pvalue=0.7507) and the general length
of relationships (pvalue=0.4015)
were found to be independent of parental status. With an alpha
10%, the type of relationship
sought by the children (pvalue=0.0826) was found to be
significantly associated with the parents’

relationship status. Also, with an alpha of 5% both the capacity
to trust partners
(pvalue=0.0277) and the desire to marry in the future
(pvalue=0.0298) were found to have a
significant association with the parents’ relationship status.
For children of divorced parents, the capacity to trust partners
(pvalue=0.4285) and the
desire to marry (pvalue=0.5420) were not significantly
associated by the facts parents were now
on friendly terms or not.
The significance of associations in the population could not be
assessed for some pairs of
categorical variables because they had expected counts smaller
than 1. These pairs of variables
are: Parental status versus expected age of marriage, parental
status versus initiation of the
discussion about marriage, and stability of parents’ relationship
versus trust in partner and
stability of parental relationship versus desire to marry for both
divorced and married parents.
Do the parental status and the students’ number of previous
relationships have a
significant association?

We notice that:17.4956 /6.20779 < 5 As a result the variances
are homogeneous. So we perform
the pooled t test.
Individual Alpha Level 0.05
Ho: µ1-µ2 = 0 Ha: µ1-µ2 < 0
25
Test Ho: µ(divorced:Number of previous relationships)-
µ(married:Number of previous
relationships) = 0 vs Ha: µ(divorced:Number of previous
relationships)-µ(married:Number of
previous relationships) < 0
Difference Between Means = -0.78120185 t-Statistic = -0.8214
w/79 df
Fail to reject Ho at Alpha = 0.05
p = 0.2069
The difference between the means is not significant. Parental
status and the students’

number of previous relationships are not significantly
associated with 95% confidency.
Do the parental status and the students’ time spent in their
current relationship have a
significant association?
Since variances are homogeneous (5.932< 5*2.204)
we can do a pooled t test on datadesk.
Individual Alpha Level 0.05
Ho: µ1-µ2 = 0 Ha: µ1-µ2 < 0
Test Ho: µ(divorced:time current relationship in years)-
µ(married:time current relationship in
years) = 0 vs Ha: µ(divorced:time current relationship in
years)-µ(married:time current
relationship in years) < 0
Difference Between Means = -0.31746508 t-Statistic = -0.3612
w/28 df
Fail to reject Ho at Alpha = 0.05
p = 0.3603
The difference between the means is not significant. Parental
status and the duration of the

current relationships of the students are independent.
C ON C L U S I ON
26
To conclude, we were able to see that the parent’s relationship
status is significantly
associated with the type of relationships sought by the children,
their capacity to trust
partners and their desire to get married in the future. The other
variables were found to
have no significant associations. As a result, the significant
associations found suggested
that children whose parents got divorced seemed to have a
slightly more negative vision of
the couple and marriage while the others tend to be more
positive about it. The project
allowed us to observe an actual phenomena which might help
explain in part the reactions
of young adults toward marriage and love relationships. Also,
the fact that several variables
had no significant associations with the parents being married
or divorced was a surprise to

us and it suggested that young adults can really move out of
their parents’ steps.
The problems we encountered were the fact that our sample
contained much more
children with parents who are still married than children with
divorced parents that we
might expect in the general population. It might be because our
sample is likely to be made
up of a quite high number of students coming from a high social
class. As such, we felt that
our sample might not be a completely representative sample for
the population of students
in Paris who are between 18 and 30 years old. In addition, some
of the students of our
sample were foreigners and according to the country, the idea of
marriage may differ and
disturb the results.

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