New measures of association for numerical variables (Q1068712)

Hypothesis-testing in the social sciences has been constrained by the inability of conventional measures of association for numerical variables to model only a restricted class of one-to-one predictive statements. In order to test ''if-then'' or other one-to-many predictions, we require a suitable paradigm for constructing new measures of bivariate association. This paper combines concepts from fuzzy set theory and the proportional reduction of error logic (PRE) which has been used for measures of association in contingency table problems, thereby providing a general framework for custom-designing measures of association. This framework incorporates probabilistic, fuzzy, and distance models for measuring deviation away from a prediction. This paper explores criteria for choosing among several competing measures, the issue of relative predictive stringency, estimation bias and stability, and optimization procedures for fitting a priori predictions to data. Examples are provided from real data sets.