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Title: Dangers of Residual Confounding: A Cautionary Tale featuring Cognitive Ability, Socioeconomic Background, and Education
Resulting in 1 citation.
1. Sorjonen, Kimmo
Falkstedt, Daniel
Wallin, Alma Sörberg
Melin, Bo
Nilsonne, Gustav
Dangers of Residual Confounding: A Cautionary Tale featuring Cognitive Ability, Socioeconomic Background, and Education
BMC Psychology 9, 145 (September 2021): DOI: 10.1186/s40359-021-00653-z.
Also: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s40359-021-00653-z
Cohort(s): NLSY97
Publisher: Springer
Keyword(s): Cognitive Ability; Educational Attainment; Socioeconomic Background

Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher.

Background: Cognitive ability and socioeconomic background (SEB) have been previously identified as determinants of achieved level of education. According to a "discrimination hypothesis", higher cognitive ability is required from those with lower SEB in order to achieve the same level of education as those with higher SEB. Support for this hypothesis has been claimed from the observation of a positive association between SEB and achieved level of education when adjusting for cognitive ability. We propose a competing hypothesis that the observed association is due to residual confounding.

Methods: To adjudicate between the discrimination and the residual confounding hypotheses, data from the 1997 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY97, N = 8984) was utilized, including a check of the logic where we switched predictor and outcome variables.

Results: The expected positive association between SEB and achieved level of education when adjusting for cognitive ability (predicted by both hypotheses) was found, but a positive association between cognitive ability and SEB when adjusting for level of education (predicted only by the residual confounding hypothesis) was also observed.

Bibliography Citation
Sorjonen, Kimmo, Daniel Falkstedt, Alma Sörberg Wallin, Bo Melin and Gustav Nilsonne. "Dangers of Residual Confounding: A Cautionary Tale featuring Cognitive Ability, Socioeconomic Background, and Education." BMC Psychology 9, 145 (September 2021): DOI: 10.1186/s40359-021-00653-z.