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What's the difference between a lurking variable and a confounding variable?

From what I read, both lurking & confounding variables masks the true relationship between a pair of variable, but it is unclear to me how they differ?

I read in a few places that confounding variables are "considered in the study" while lurking variables aren't. However, what does it mean for a variable to be "considered" in the study? Does it just have to be mentioned somewhere in the paper or is there more to it?

Guillaume F.
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  • They may not differ. You could argue that the lurking variable is not measured and the confounder is, but I'm not sure I'd agree. Or you could argue that the lurking variable has not been discovered while the confounder has. That sounds more reasonable to me. In any case, they certainly function the same way in biasing results, and they both need to be handled correctly in order to get good results. – Adrian Keister Nov 18 '22 at 17:35

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