Jesse and Hank Investigated the Relationships Between the Geographic Region

Jesse and Hank investigated the relationships between the geographic region in which respondents lived, respondents' attitudes toward public school, and their willingness to break rules to help others, what Jesse and Hank deem the "robin hood effect." They found that in a multiple regression, with geographic region and public school attitudes as the predictors and willingness to break rules to help others as the criterion, the partial correlation between geographic location and willingness to break rules was 0.00 after controlling for public school attitudes. Conversely, after controlling for location, the partial correlation between public school attitudes and willingness to break rules was 0.50! Considering what we know about nonexperimental methods and the potential effects of error, which of the following statements is NOT a probable explanation for the observed patterns of partial correlations?

A) public school attitudes and willingness to break rules do, in fact, share common variation that is not shared by geographic location
B) geographic location and willingness to break rules do not, in fact, share any common variation after controlling for public school attitudes
C) after controlling for geographic location, the significant partial correlation between public school attitudes and willingness to break rules can be attributed to other factors, including measurement error, third variables, etc.
D) A and B
E) B and C
F) all of the above