THEORY OF ATTRIBUTES

Introduction:
Generally statistics deal with quantitative data only. But in
behavioural sciences, one often deals with the variables which are
not quantitatively measurable. Literally an attribute means a quality
on characteristic which are not related to quantitative
measurements. Examples of attributes are health, honesty, blindness
etc. They cannot be measured directly. The observer may find the
presence or absence of these attributes. Statistics of attributes based
on descriptive character.

Notations:
Association of attribute is studied by the presence or
absence of a particular attribute. If only one attribute is studied, the
population is divided into two classes according to its presence or
absence and such classification is termed as division by dichotomy.
If a class is divided into more than two scale-classes, such
classification is called manifold classification.
Positive class which denotes the presence of attribute is
generally denoted by Roman letters generally A,B,….etc and the
negative class denoting the absence of the attribute and it is denoted
by the Greek letters , ….etc For example, A represents
the attribute ‘ Literacy’ and B represents ‘ Criminal’ . and
represents the ‘ Illiteracy’ and ‘ Not Criminal’ respectively.

Classes and Class frequencies:

Different attributes, their sub-groups and combinations are
called different classes and the numbers of observations assigned to
them are called their class frequencies.
If two attributes are studied the number of classes will be 9.
(i.e.,) (A) , ( ), (B), ( ), (A ) ( ), ( B) and N.
The chart given below illustrates it clearly.

(A) ( )

(AB) (A ) ( B) ( )

The number of observations or units belonging to class is

known as its frequency are denoted within bracket. Thus (A) stands
for the frequency of A and (AB) stands for the number objects
possessing the attribute both A and B. The contingency table of
order (2 2) for two attributes A and B can be displayed as given
below

A Total
B (AB) ( B) (B)
(A ) ( ) ( )
Total (A) ( ) N

Relationship between the class frequencies:

The frequency of a lower order class can always be
expressed in terms of the higher order class frequencies.
i.e., N = ( A ) + ( ) = (B) + ( )
(A) = (AB) + (A )
( ) = ( B) + ( )
(B) = (AB) + ( B)
( ) = (A ) + ( )
n
If the number of attributes is n, then there will be 3
n
classes and we have 2 cell frequencies.
Consistency of the data:
In order to find out whether the given data are consistent or
not we have to apply a very simple test. The test is to find out
whether any or more of the ultimate class-frequencies is negative or
not. If none of the class frequencies is negative we can safely
calculate that the given data are consistent (i.e the frequencies do not
conflict in any way each other). On the other hand, if any of the
ultimate class frequencies comes to be negative the given data are
inconsistent.
When there are three attributes the conditions for consistency
are
(1) AB+BC+AC ≥ A+B+C - N
(2) AC+BC - AB ≤ C
(3) AB+BC - AC ≤ B
(4) AB+BC - BC ≤ A
If any of the above four conditions is not satisfied the data is said to
be inconsistent.
Example 1:
Given N = 2500, (A) = 420, (AB) = 85 and (B) = 670.
Find the missing values.
Example 2:
Test the consistency of the following data with the symbols
having their usual meaning.
N = 1000 (A) = 600 (B) = 500 (AB) = 50
Solution:

A Total

B 50 450 500

550 -50 500

Total 600 400 1000

Since ( )) = 50, the given data is inconsistent.

Example 3:
Examine the consistency of the given data. N = 60 (A) = 51
(B) = 32 (AB) = 25

Solution:
A Total
B 25 7 32
26 2 28
Total 51 9 60

Since all the frequencies are positive, it can be concluded

that the given data are consistent.
Example 4:

Examine the consistency of following data

(N) = 2000, (A) = 1050, (B) = 624, (C) = 940, (AB) = 821, (BC) =
192, (AC) = 294
Solution:
The conditions for consistency are
(1) AB + BC + AC ≥ A+B+C - N
(2) AC + BC - AB ≤ C
(3) AB + BC - AC ≤ B
(4) AB + BC - BC ≤ A
We have
AB + BC+ AC = 821 + 192 + 294 = 1307
A + B + C – N = 1050 + 624 + 940 – 2000 = 614
Since 1304 > 614, Hence condition (1) is satisfied.

Now for condition (2)

AC + BC - AB ≤ C
294 + 192 - 821 ≤ 940
-335 ≤ 940
Hence condition (2) also satisfied.

For condition (3)

AB + BC - AC ≤ B
821 + 192 - 294 ≤ 192
719 > 624
So, condition (3) does not holds.
Therefore, the given data is inconsistent.

Independence of Attributes:
If the attributes are said to be independent the presence or
absence of one attribute does not affect the presence or absence of
the other. For example, the attributes skin colour and intelligence of
persons are independent.
If two attributes A and B are independent then the actual
frequency is equal to the expected frequency
(AB) = (A).(B)
N
Similarly ( ) = ( ).( )
N
Association of attributes:
Two attributes A and B are said to be associated if they are
not independent but they are related with each other in some way or
other.
The attributes A and B are said to be positively associated if
(AB) > (A).(B)
N
If (AB) < (A).(B) , then they are said to be negatively associated.
N
Example 4:
Show that whether A and B are independent, positively
associated or negatively associated.
(AB) = 128, ( B) = 384, (A ) = 24 and ( ) = 72
Solution:
(A) = (AB) + (A )
= 128 + 24
(A) = 152
(B) = (AB) + ( B)
= 128 +384
(B) = 512
( ) = ( B) + ( )
= 384 + 72
( ) = 456
(N) = (A) + ( )
= 152 + 456
= 608
(A) (B) = 152 512
N 608
= 128
(AB) = 128
(AB) = (A) (B)
N
Hence A and B are independent

Example 5:
From the following data, find out the types of association of
A and B.
1)N=200 (A) = 30 (B) = 100 (AB) = 15
2)N=400 (A) = 50 (B) = 160 (AB) = 20
3)N=800 (A) = 160 (B) = 300 (AB) = 50
Solution:
1. Expected frequency of (AB) = (A).(B)
N
= (30)(100) = 15
200
Since the actual frequency is equal to the expected frequency,
ie 15 = 15, therefore A and B are independent.
2. Expected frequency of (AB) = (A).(B)

N
= (50)(160) = 20
400
Since the actual frequency is greater than expected frequency. i.e.,
25 > 20, therefore A and B are positively associated.

3. Expected frequency of (AB) = (A).(B) = (160)(300) = 60

N 800
Since Actual frequency is less than expected frequency i.e., 50 < 60
therefore A and B are negatively associated.

Yules’ co-efficient of association:

The above example gives a rough idea about association but
not the degree of association. For this Prof. G. Undy Yule has
suggested a formula to measure the degree of association. It is a
relative measure of association between two attributes A and B.
If (AB), ( B), (A ) and ( ) are the four distinct
combination of A, B, and then Yules’ co-efficient of
association is
Q

Note:
I. If Q = +1 there is perfect positive association
If Q = -1 there is perfect negative association
If Q = 0 there is no association (ie) A and B are independent
 1. For rememberance of the above formula , we use the
table below
A
B AB B
A

Example 6:
Investigate the association between darkness of eye colour
in father and son from the following data.
Fathers’ with dark eyes and sons’ with dark eyes = 50
Fathers’ with dark eyes an sons’ with no dark eyes = 79
Fathers’ with no dark eyes and sons with dark eyes = 89
Neither son nor father having dark eyes = 782
Solution:
Let A denote the dark eye colour of father and B denote
dark eye colour of son.
A Total
B 50 89 139
79 782 861
Total 129 871 1000
Yules’ co-efficient of association is

there is a positive association between the eye colour of fathers’

and sons’.
Example 7 :
Can vaccination be regarded as a preventive measure of small
pox from the data given below.
Of 1482 persons in a locality, exposed to small pox, 368 in
all were attacked, among the 1482 persons 343 had been vaccinated
among these only 35 were attacked.
Solution:
Let A denote the attribute of vaccination and B denote that of
attacked.

A Total
B 35 333 368
308 806 1114
Total 343 1139 1482
Yules’ co-efficient of association is

i.e., there is a negative association between attacked and

vaccinated. In other words there is a positive association between not
attacked and vaccinated. Hence vaccination can be regarded as a
preventive measure for small pox.

Example 8:
In a co-educational institution, out of 200 students, 150
were boys. They took an examination and it was found that 120
passed, 10 girls failed. Is there any association between sex and
success in the examination.
Solution:
Let A denote boys and denote girls. Let B denote those
who passed the examination and denote those who failed.
We have given N = 200 (A) = 150 (AB) = 120 ( ) = 10 Other
frequencies can be obtained from the following table

A Total
B 120 40 160
30 10 40
Total 150 50 200

Yule’ s co-efficient of association is

Therefore, there is no association between sex and success in the
examination.