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A big problem with any study that reports a correlation is that the casual reason for the correlation may the the opposite of what one tends to assume. Suppose studies show that people living in dense cities are more socially connected and happy than those who live in suburbs. The question is whether this is because the dense cities provide more social interation, or because people who seek more social intereation are attracted to dense cities? I suspect that the second of those explanations is the primary explanation for the correlation. After all, people who are somewhat shy will likely prefer either the hometown where they have longstanding comfortable comnnections or the suburbs where isolation is somewhat the norm, rather than an urban environment where social connections with new people are hard to avoid. But those who thrive on connections with other people will be drawn to dense cities.
Correlation is much easier to show than causation, yes. And it's an interesting hypothesis that people who are more social are more attracted to cities.
A big problem with any study that reports a correlation is that the casual reason for the correlation may the the opposite of what one tends to assume. Suppose studies show that people living in dense cities are more socially connected and happy than those who live in suburbs. The question is whether this is because the dense cities provide more social interation, or because people who seek more social intereation are attracted to dense cities? I suspect that the second of those explanations is the primary explanation for the correlation. After all, people who are somewhat shy will likely prefer either the hometown where they have longstanding comfortable comnnections or the suburbs where isolation is somewhat the norm, rather than an urban environment where social connections with new people are hard to avoid. But those who thrive on connections with other people will be drawn to dense cities.
Correlation is much easier to show than causation, yes. And it's an interesting hypothesis that people who are more social are more attracted to cities.