Statistical Methods for Psychology

Appendix: Computer Data Sets 695

recall interval have been deleted from the 1.0 mg/kg condition. A second data set was cre-
ated with 12 observations in each of the 9 cells, and is called Epineq.dat. In both cases, the
need to create data that were integers led to results that are slightly conservative relative to
the actual data. But the conclusions with respect to H 0 are the same.
For both data sets, there is a three-digit ID; dosage is coded (1, 2, or 3) in column 5; the
retention interval is coded (1, 2, or 3) in column 7; and the number of errors in learning the
second discrimination is coded in column 9. The first four lines of data follow:

001110

002113

003114

004112

Mireault.dat

Mireault (1990) collected data from 381 college students, some of whom had lost a parent
by death during their childhood. She had three groups of students. Group 1 was composed
of subjects who had lost a parent. Group 2 was composed of subjects whose parents were
still alive and married to each other. Group 3 consisted of students whose parents were
divorced.
Mireault was interested in observing the effects of parental loss on the person’s current
level of symptomatology (as measured by the Brief Symptom Inventory, Derogatis, 1983)
and on the individual’s self-perceived vulnerability to future loss. In the interest of space,
the data set includes only the total vulnerability measure, and not the subscales. There is
also a single measure for social support. For all measures, a higher score represents more of
the concept being measured.
The variables, and their location in the file, are listed following the sample data.
Missing data are represented by a period. The first three lines of data are shown below
as an example.

00221142.. 425359574957475146511122466
0071212.118658064717273636767721002373
00822114.. 526760626578606558651182864

Variable Name Columns Description

ID 1–3 Subject identification number

Group 5 15 loss; 2 5 married; 3 5 divorced

Gender 7 15 male; 2 5 female

YearColl 9 15 first year; 2 5 sophomore; and so on

College 11 15 arts and sciences; 2 5 health;

35 engineering; 4 5 business; 5 5 agriculture

GPA 13 45 A; 3 5 B; 2 5 C; 1 5 D; 0 5 F

LostPGen 15 Gender of lost parent

AgeAtLos 17–18 Age at parent’s death

SomT 20–21 Somatization Tscore

ObsessT 23–24 Obsessive-compulsive Tscore

SensitT 26–27 Interpersonal sensitivity Tscore

DepressT 29–30 Depression Tscore

AnxT 32–33 Anxiety Tscore

(continued)