My memory is slightly fuzzy on this point, but I believe I had already heard of the excellent British comedy Coupling the night I happened upon the hysterical Series 4 episode “Nightlines” sometime in late 2004 or early 2005; the show first aired on May 17, 2004. Despite being completely unfamiliar with any of the characters or previous storylines, I have rarely laughed that hard before or since.
And I was hooked, to the point where I have seen all 28 episodes multiple times. In so doing, I learned the name of the man who wrote every episode: Steven Moffat.
A little over five years later, in the late spring of 2010, a friend sent me this short video to watch. This was what finally convinced me to set aside my reticence and watch an episode of Doctor Who; please see here and here to see how THAT turned out.
Among other things, that video marked the advent of Moffat as Doctor Who showrunner, a fitting reward for writing some of the best episodes of the post-2005 revival to that point. It also meant that by the end of 2010, two of my favorite television shows—period—had Moffat’s fingerprints all over them.
This probably made it inevitable, especially given my lifelong obsession with detective fiction, that I—along with my wife Nell—would eventually start watching the television show Moffat co-created and co-wrote with Mark Gatiss,[1] the one which debuted on October 24, 2010, just six months after his tenure as Doctor Who showrunner began:
Though I had seen him act before, in 2013’s Star Trek Into Darkness, Sherlock marked the first time I was aware I was watching an actor named Benedict Cumberbatch.
Flash forward to early January 2020, by which point I had seen every episode of Sherlock, as well as every episode of Coupling and post-revival Doctor Who. Having worked through my obsession with Stranger Things, I was casting about for the next film or television series over which to obsess. I was well aware of the pop culture phenomenon that is the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), but until then I had not been especially interested in watching any of its 23 interconnected films. Curiously, one of our daughters had already seen and loved Guardians of the Galaxy, as well as portions of Avengers: Infinity War, while the other one had seen Captain Marvel on the big screen with one of her best friends. As much as I had enjoyed the Spider-Man trilogy starring Tobey Maguire, though, none of the other characters who seemed to inhabit the MCU—Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk, Captain America and Thor—particularly spoke to me. And that could well be because my primary association with those characters was spending five days as a nine-year-old in early January 1976 staring blankly at Captain America on my Mighty Marvel Bicentennial wall calendar as I recovered from one of the worst flus I have ever had.
Well…there had been one mild exception. When Doctor Strange was released in 2016, starring Cumberbatch in the title role, I was intrigued. Nell and I had loved Cumberbatch in Sherlock, and there was something about his being both a doctor—my Twitter handle is @drnoir33, after all—and a “master of the mystic arts” that felt like a fresh twist on the classic superhero epic battle trope.
Plus, I was really curious about the sparkly golden circles he kept making with his hands.
Which is how I found myself watching—and genuinely enjoying—Doctor Strange roughly six weeks ago. Following a pre-credits fight scene and the opening credits, we meet Doctor Stephen Strange as he prepares for surgery. A short time later, nearing the end of the procedure, he asks a fellow physician to play the “challenge” round in a musical trivia game. After easily identifying “Feels So Good” by Chuck Mangione, along with its correct year of release—1977, not 1978—Strange is asked about all the “useless” knowledge he has.
His flabbergasted response recalls my own immersion in musical esoterica: “Useless? The man charted a top ten hit with a flugelhorn!”
As we have been told for years about Pringles, you cannot stop at just one MCU film—especially not when your wife has a massive lifelong crush on Robert Downey, Jr., who portrays Tony Stark/Iron Man in nine MCU films. Subsequent days of film watching culminated with the four of us watching the wholly-satisfying, 3-hour-long Avengers: Endgame on the evening of February 16, 2020; for me, I now only have Spider-Man: Far From Home left to watch. And we are already making plans to see Black Widow when it is released in May 2020.
**********
In two previous posts, I gathered online film rating data to rank…
- The 47 Charlie Chan films released between 1926 and 1949
- The 557 films I had seen at least twice as of February 2019
As I watched the MCU films, I decided to perform a similar analysis of this set of films.[2] Opening a blank Microsoft Excel worksheet, for each film I entered its:
- Title
- Date of release (according to the Internet Movie Database, or IMDb)
- Year of release (ditto)
- Length in minutes (ditto)
- Estimated budget (ditto)
- Gross worldwide earnings (ditto)
- IMDb score and number of raters
- Rotten Tomatoes (RT) Tomatometer score (% RT-sanctioned critics deeming film “fresh”), average critic rating (0-10) and number of critics
- Audience Score (% RT users rating the film 3.5 or higher on 0-5 scale), average user rating and number of user raters
I collected budget and earnings data because I was curious whether, and how much, estimated profit—gross earnings minus budget—was related to perceived quality. Data are current as of 1:30 am EST on February 24, 2020. Analyses were performed using Microsoft Excel (Office Home and Student 2016) and Intercooled Stata 9.2[3].
History of a financial juggernaut.
As Table 1 reveals, the Marvel Cinematic Universe kicked off on May 2, 2008 with the release of Iron Man. Produced for an estimated $140 million, it ultimately earned nearly $585.4 million worldwide; the resulting $445.4 million profit was more than three times what the film cost to make. At the end of the film, in the first MCU post-credits scene, Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) first reveals something called “the Avenger initiative” to Downey’s Stark.
Table 1: MCU Films by release date and financial status
| Title | Release date | Run time (mins.) | Estimated budget | Gross worldwide earnings | Estimated profit | Profit/
Budget |
| Iron Man | 5/2/2008 | 126 | $140 million | $585,366,247 | $445,366,247 | 3.18 |
| The Incredible Hulk | 6/13/2008 | 112 | $150 million | $264,770,996 | $114,770,996 | 0.77 |
| Iron Man 2 | 5/7/2010 | 124 | $200 million | $623,933,331 | $423,933,331 | 2.12 |
| Thor | 5/6/2011 | 115 | $150 million | $449,326,618 | $299,326,618 | 2.00 |
| Captain America: The First Avenger | 7/2/2011 | 124 | $140 million | $370,569,774 | $230,569,774 | 1.65 |
| Marvel’s The Avengers | 5/4/2012 | 143 | $220 million | $1,518,812,988 | $1,298,812,988 | 5.90 |
| End of Phase 1 | ||||||
| Iron Man 3 | 5/3/2013 | 130 | $200 million | $1,214,811,252 | $1,014,811,252 | 5.07 |
| Thor: The Dark World | 11/8/2013 | 112 | $170 million | $644,783,140 | $474,783,140 | 2.79 |
| Captain America: The Winter Soldier | 4/4/2014 | 136 | $170 million | $714,421,503 | $544,421,503 | 3.20 |
| Guardians of the Galaxy | 8/1/2014 | 121 | $170 million | $772,776,600 | $602,776,600 | 3.55 |
| Avengers: Age of Ultron | 5/1/2015 | 141 | $250 million | $1,402,805,868 | $1,152,805,868 | 4.61 |
| Ant-Man | 7/17/2015 | 117 | $130 million | $519,311,965 | $389,311,965 | 2.99 |
| End of Phase 2 | ||||||
| Captain America: Civil War | 5/6/2016 | 147 | $250 million | $1,153,296,293 | $903,296,293 | 3.61 |
| Doctor Strange | 11/4/2016 | 115 | $165 million | $677,718,395 | $512,718,395 | 3.11 |
| Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 | 5/5/2017 | 136 | $200 million | $863,756,051 | $663,756,051 | 3.32 |
| Spider Man: Homecoming | 7/7/2017 | 133 | $175 million | $880,166,924 | $705,166,924 | 4.03 |
| Thor: Ragnorak | 11/3/2017 | 130 | $180 million | $853,977,126 | $673,977,126 | 3.74 |
| Black Panther | 2/16/2018 | 134 | $200 million | $1,346,913,161 | $1,146,913,161 | 5.73 |
| Avengers: Infinity War | 4/27/2018 | 149 | $321 million | $2,048,359,754 | $1,727,359,754 | 5.38 |
| Ant-Man and the Wasp | 7/6/2018 | 118 | $162 million | $622,674,139 | $460,674,139 | 2.84 |
| Captain Marvel | 3/8/2019 | 123 | $175 million | $1,128,274,794 | $953,274,794 | 5.45 |
| Avengers: Endgame | 4/25/2019 | 181 | $356 million | $2,797,800,564 | $2,441,800,564 | 6.86 |
| Spider Man: Far From Home | 7/2/2019 | 129 | $160 million | $1,131,927,996 | $971,927,996 | 6.07 |
| End of Phase 3 | ||||||
Six weeks after Iron Man hit theaters, The Incredible Hulk was released—and while it turned a modest $114.8 million estimated profit, it remains the only MCU film to have a lower estimated profit than estimated budget. Perhaps this is why the third MCU film, Iron Man 2, did not arrive in theaters for nearly two more years; while not as successful as its predecessor, its estimated profit was still more than twice its estimated budget. The same was true of the next two films, which introduced Thor (and Clint Barton/Hawkeye) and Captain America; we had already met Natasha Romanoff/Black Widow in Iron Man 2.
On May 4, 2012, these six “Avengers” would unite in the most successful MCU film to date: Marvel’s The Avengers. This was not only the first film in the franchise to earn more than $1 billion in estimated profit—a staggering 5.9 times its estimated $220 million budget—it is fully 23 minutes longer than the first five films, on average; it also contains my favorite post-credits scene. Avengers provided a highly profitable end to what is now known as “Phase 1,” with the six films combining for more than $2.8 billion in estimated profit.
Phase 2 launched almost exactly one year later with Iron Man 3, the second consecutive MCU film to top $1 billion in estimated profit and have a profit/budget ratio (PBR) of at least 5.0. The next five films, ending with the more explicitly-comedic Ant-Man, all had a PBR of at least 2.79, with Avengers: Age of Ultron becoming the third MCU film to top $1 billion in estimated profit. Overall, the six Phase 2 films earned nearly $4.2 billion in estimated profit, as the franchise steadily increased in popularity. Besides Ant-Man (and, by implication, The Wasp) this Phase also introduced War Machine/James Rhodes, The Falcon/Sam Wilson, Vision/Jarvis, Scarlet Witch/Wanda Maximoff, Rescue/Pepper Potts, Winter Soldier/James “Bucky” Barnes and the Guardians of the Galaxy: Star-Lord/Peter Quill, Rocket Raccoon, Groot, Drax the Destroyer, Gamora and (though not yet an Avenger) Nebula.
Phase 3, the final Phase of what is known collectively as “The Infinity Saga,” began with the release of Captain America: Civil War on May 6, 2016; this film was the longest film to date, at 2 hours, 27 minutes, and it featured the debut of Spider Man. The aforementioned Doctor Strange was released six months later, also introducing Wong, with three films—one introducing Mantis and another introducing Valkyrie, Korg and Miek—following in 2017. The release of Black Panther on February 16, 2018 not only signaled the impending showdown with Thanos in the subsequent Avengers: Infinity War, it also introduced four more Avengers: the titular Black Panther/T’Challa, Okoye, Shuri and M’Baku, bringing the total to 31. Black Panther and Infinity War would become the fourth and fifth MCU films to top $1 billion in estimated profit; the latter’s estimated $1.73 billion in profit easily made it the most profitable film in the franchise to date.
Following an Ant-Man sequel and the introduction of Captain Marvel, the interlocking storylines reached their crescendo on April 25, 2019 with the release of Avengers: Endgame. This latter film, the most profitable of all time at an estimated $2.44 billion—6.9 times its $356 million estimated budget, was just over three hours long, continuing a trend of increasing run times; the previous nine Phase 3 films average 2 hours, 12 minutes in length. Overall, the 11 Phase 3 films accrued $11.16 billion in estimated profit—meaning the average Phase 3 film netted more than $1 billion—bringing the total estimated profit across all 23 MCU films to $18.15 billion, for an average of more than $660 million per film.
As for the sheer length of these films, they combine for 2,996 minutes of run time: 2 days, 1 hour and 56 minutes in total. So, you could knock them off in one weekend-long epic marathon, though I would not recommend it.
Online ratings and increasing public awareness.
Table 2 presents five online ratings and three counts of online raters for the 23 films in the MCU.
Table 2: Ratings Measures for MCU Films
| Title | IMDb Score
(# Raters) |
Tomato-
meter |
Mean Tomato-
meter Rating (# Raters) |
RT Audience Score | Mean
Audience Rating (# Raters) |
| Iron Man | 7.9
(898,514) |
94 | 7.7
(278) |
91 | 4.3
(1,082,398) |
| The Incredible Hulk | 6.7
(416,152) |
67 | 6.2
(231) |
70 | 3.7
(739,115) |
| Iron Man 2 | 7.0
(686,963) |
73 | 6.5
(297) |
71 | 3.7
(480,400) |
| Thor | 7.0
(711.939) |
77 | 6.7
(284) |
76 | 3.8
(247.469) |
| Captain America: The First Avenger | 6.9
(701,165) |
80 | 6.9
(267) |
74 | 3.8
(188,979) |
| Marvel’s The Avengers | 8.0
(1,218,614) |
92 | 8.1
(384) |
91 | 4.4
(1,135,342) |
| Iron Man 3 | 7.2
(721.159) |
79 | 7.0
(318) |
78 | 3.9
(484,684) |
| Thor: The Dark World | 6.9
(565,662) |
66 | 6.2
(271) |
76 | 3.9
(310,425) |
| Captain America: The Winter Soldier | 7.7
(698,659) |
90 | 7.6
(295) |
92 | 4.3
(281,813) |
| Guardians of the Galaxy | 8.0
(996,682) |
91 | 7.8
(322) |
92 | 4.4
(255,076) |
| Avengers: Age of Ultron | 7.3
(700,440) |
75 | 6.8
(360) |
83 | 4.0
(288,171) |
| Ant-Man | 7.3
(533,917) |
83 | 6.9
(321) |
86 | 4.0
(166,462) |
| Captain America: Civil War | 7.8
(621,385) |
91 | 7.7
(406) |
89 | 4.3
(179,582) |
| Doctor Strange | 7.5
(554,767) |
89 | 7.3
(364) |
86 | 4.1
(109,969) |
| Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 | 7.6
(624,996) |
85 | 7.3
(403) |
87 | 4.2
(108,403) |
| Spider Man: Homecoming | 7.4
(472,178) |
92 | 7.7
(384) |
87 | 4.2
(107,475) |
| Thor: Ragnorak | 7.9
(534,496) |
93 | 7.6
(409) |
87 | 4.2
(93.959) |
| Black Panther | 7.3
(565,228) |
97 | 8.3
(494) |
79 | 4.1
(88,211) |
| Avengers: Infinity War | 8.5
(748,778) |
85 | 7.6
(455) |
91 | 4.5
(57.790) |
| Ant-Man and the Wasp | 7.1
(277,244) |
88 | 7.0
(417) |
76 | 3.7
(24,169) |
| Captain Marvel | 6.9
(395,538) |
78 | 6.8
(504) |
48 | 2.9
(94,460) |
| Avengers: Endgame | 8.5
(670,991) |
94 | 8.2
(504) |
90 | 4.5
(68,431) |
| Spider Man: Far From Home | 7.5
(264,988) |
91 | 7.5
(427) |
95 | 4.6
(69,222) |
Table 3, meanwhile, summarizes all 14 measures.
Table 3: Summary MCU Film statistics
| Measure | Mean
(SD*) |
Median | Minimum | Maximum |
| Year of Release | 2014.7
(3.4) |
2015 | 2008 | 2019 |
| Length (mins.) | 130.3
(15.5) |
129 | 112 | 181 |
| Estimated Budget | $192,782,609
($55,961,802) |
$175,000,000 | $140,000,000 | $356,000,000 |
| Gross Earnings | $982,024,151
($576,952,326) |
$853,977,126 | $264,770,996 | $2,797,800,564 |
| Estimated Profit | $789,241,543
($52,6038,263) |
$663,756,051 | $114,770,996 | $2,441,800,564 |
| Profit/Budget | 3.8
(1.6) |
3.5 | 0.8 | 6.9 |
| IMDb Score | 7.5
(0.5) |
7.4 | 6.7 | 8.5 |
| # IMDb Raters | 629,584.6
(216,222.3) |
621,385 | 277,244
|
1,218,614 |
| Tomatometer | 84.8
(8.9) |
88 | 66 | 97 |
| RT Critic Rating | 7.3
(0.6) |
7.3 | 6.2 | 8.3 |
| # RT Critics | 363.7
(80.2) |
360 | 231 | 504 |
| RT Audience Score | 82.4
(10.5) |
86 | 48 | 92 |
| RT User Rating | 4.1
(0.4) |
4.1 | 2.9 | 4.5 |
| # RT User Raters | 289,652.4
(308,813.2) |
179,582 | 24,169 | 1,135,342 |
*SD=standard deviation, a measure of how tightly packed values are around the mean: the smaller the value, the tighter the packing. In a normal distribution, 68% of values are within 1 SD, 95% are within 2 SD and 99% are within 3 SD.
Two conclusions emerge from these data:
- As a group, these films are relatively well-regarded
- There is minimal variation in how well-regarded these films are.
The median IMDb score for the MCU films is a more-than-respectable 7.4, meaning half the films have a lower score and half have a higher score. Only four films have a score below 7.0: The Incredible Hulk at a good-but-not-great 6.7 and three films at 6.9. The median Tomatometer score was a very-high 88, with a solid average RT Critic rating of 7.3. Only Hulk and Thor: The Dark World have a Tomatometer score less than 70 and an average RT Critic Rating below 6.5. Finally, the median RT Audience Score is an impressive 86 and the median RT User Rating is a very solid 4.1. Only Captain Marvel has an RT audience score below 70 and an average RT User Rating below 3.5, a medicore 48 and 2.9, respectively.
For comparison, the median IMDb Score, Tomatometer, RT Critic Rating, RT Audience Score and RT User Rating values for the 557 films I analyzed in my “guilty pleasures” post are 7.2, 85, 7.1, 76 and 3.5, respectively.
At the other end of the spectrum, meanwhile, Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame both have an IMDb score of 8.5, with two other films scoring 8.0. Fully 10 films have Tomatometer≥90, topped by Black Panther at an eye-popping 97. Black Panther also has the highest RT Critic Rating at 8.3, followed closely by Endgame and The Avengers. Seven films have RT Audience Score≥90, topped by Far From Home at an astonishing 95. Finally, Infinity War, Endgame and Far From Home all have RT User Ratings of 4.5 or 4.6.
As for how little variance there are in these rating measures, all five standard deviations were lower than or (RT User Rating) identical to those for the far more disparate 557 films I analyzed in the earlier post. Broadly speaking, these films are clustered around an appraisal of “good, just shy of great.” Even the (relatively) lower-rated films like Hulk, Dark World and Captain Marvel are far more “meh” than “awful,” while films like Black Panther, The Avengers and Endgame approach “critical darling” status.
The three “number of raters” measures also have relatively low variance. Perhaps because it is the more-established online movie information resource, there are consistently many more IMDb Raters than RT User Raters. At the same time, while none of the 557 films discussed in the earliest post had more than 342 RT Critics, fully 13 MCU films do, topped by the 504 who weighed in on Captain Marvel and Endgame. Curiously, while the number of both IMDb Raters and RT User Raters appears to be lower for more recent films, as one would expect, the number of RT Critics actually seems to increase over time. Correlations (“r”)—a measure ranging from -1.00 to 1.00 of how closely two variables are linearly related to each other[4]—between date of release and each of these three measures confirm this: the former two are negatively correlated (r=-0.47 and -0.78, respectively) with date of release while RT Critics is very highly positively correlated at 0.88.
**********
To assess these films in a more sophisticated way, I used a statistical technique called factor analysis, which groups variables into underlying “dimensions,” or “factors,” used the 14 variables in Table 3. Each variable has a “factor loading” for each factor, essentially its correlation with the underlying dimension. This technique[5] generated three factors accounting for 90% of the total variance in these data, which is remarkably high.
The first factor (accounting for 39% of total variance) is dominated by gross worldwide earnings (0.96), estimated profit (0.96) estimated budget (0.93), run time (0.84) and PBR (0.77); number of RT critics (0.61) and IMDb score (0.56) also load relatively high on this factor. As this dimension mostly combines the cost and profitability of each film with its length, I label it “Epicness.”
The second factor (30%) is dominated by RT audience score (0.91), average RT user rating (0.88), Tomatometer (0.85), RT Critic Rating (0.81) and IMDB Score (0.74). This dimension is clearly “Perceived Quality” (PQ).
The third factor (21%) is dominated by year of release (0.88), number of RT audience raters (-0.84), number of RT critics (-0.74) and number of IMDB raters (0.72): precisely the same pattern outlined above. This dimension is effectively “Recency;” I do not dwell on it below, echoing the “guilty pleasures” post.
Table 4: How MCU Films Compare on Three “Ratings” Dimensions
| Title |
Epicness |
Perceived Quality | Recency |
| Iron Man | -0.66 | 1.19 | -1.97 |
| The Incredible Hulk | -0.81 | -1.55 | -1.25 |
| Iron Man 2 | -0.12 | -1.27 | -1.01 |
| Thor | -0.80 | -0.61 | -0.54 |
| Captain America: The First Avenger | -0.96 | -0.55 | -0.39 |
| Marvel’s The Avengers | 1.05 | 1.01 | -1.64 |
| Iron Man 3 | 0.68 | -0.73 | -0.92 |
| Thor: The Dark World | -0.35 | -1.30 | -0.48 |
| Captain America: The Winter Soldier | -0.64 | 0.97 |
-0.30 |
| Guardians of the Galaxy | -0.54 | 1.24 | -0.48 |
| Avengers: Age of Ultron | 0.96 | -0.76 | -0.41 |
| Ant-Man | -1.05 | 0.15 | 0.35 |
| Captain America: Civil War | 0.33 | 0.62 | 0.19 |
| Doctor Strange | -0.67 | 0.44 | 0.55 |
| Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 | -0.36 | 0.30 | 0.73 |
| Spider Man: Homecoming | -0.42 M | 0.64 | 0.80 |
| Thor: Ragnorak | -0.48 | 0.76 | 0.81 |
| Black Panther | 0.47 | 0.49 | 1.06 |
| Avengers: Infinity War | 1.87 | 0.32 M | -0.03 M |
| Ant-Man and the Wasp | -0.74 | -0.35 | 1.68 |
| Captain Marvel | 0.68 | -2.47 | 1.50 |
| Avengers: Endgame | 2.98 | 0.47 | 0.33 |
| Spider Man: Far From Home | -0.66 | 1.19 | -1.97 |
Table 4 reveals how many SD above or below the mean (set to 0) all 23 films are on these three dimensions.[6] Values≥1.0 are boldfaced, and values≤-1.0 are italicized; median value is marked with an “M.”
When reading these values, keep in mind that each of these factors is as “disentangled” from the other two as possible, though Epicness and PQ still overlap to some extent. This is why, for example, Infinity War and Endgame have by far the highest “Epicness” scores—they are the longest films with the highest budgets earning the most money—but do not have as high PQ scores despite their generally high ratings: they are far more “epic” than they are “high quality” according to these data. And it is why Guardians and Iron Man top these films on PQ—they are the highest-rated films which, while very profitable, were not quite on the scale of the final two Avengers films; the well-received Captain America: The Winter Soldier falls into this category as well. Somewhere in between are epic, but not well-regarded films like Ultron and less-epic, but relatively well-regarded films like Ant-Man and Doctor Strange.
The only film, meanwhile, with value≥1.0 on both measures is The Avengers, while the only film to have positive values on all three measures is Civil War.
At the other end of the spectrum, not surprisingly, are films like Hulk, Dark World, and Iron Man 2 that made far less money and are relatively lower-rated, as well as the anomalous Captain Marvel, which turned a tidy profit despite the lowest PQ score by far. In fact, every film between Iron Man and Avengers has negative values for all three measures, as does Dark World.
Summary. For those new to the MCU, these data suggest starting at the beginning, with Iron Man then jumping ahead to The Avengers; you do not miss much along the way, with the mild exception of First Avenger, which introduces key characters and plot points. Watch Winter Soldier and Guardians next, then Civil War. I personally would watch Ant-Man, Doctor Strange and Black Panther after that, if only because each is interesting in its own right and, like First Avenger, relay key characters and plot points. And then you can conclude with Infinity War and Endgame, bearing in mind their combined run time is 5 hours and 30 minutes.
Or, you can choose your own MCU adventure, which these data strongly suggest you would enjoy.
Until next time…
[1] I strongly recommend Gatiss’ three-part series on the history of horror films. Part 1 may be found here.
[2] Only to learn Leonard Maltin stopped publishing his annual Movie Guide in 2015. ata Statistical Software: Release 9. College Station, TX: StataCorp LP.
[4] Essentially, a positive correlation means that as one variable increases, the other one does as well, while a negative correlation means that as one variable increases, the other one decreases.
[5] Principal factors, with an orthogonal varimax rotation, forced to three factors.
[6] Using the “Predict” command—regression scoring method—in Stata. In essence, it converts each variable to a “z-score” (mean=0, SD=1), recalculates the factor loadings, then sums each value weighted by the factor loadings.
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