# Correlation between two sets of traits (one with 3 variables, the other with 4 variables)

I have what seemed like a straight-forward analysis to conduct, but perhaps is not. I have two trait categories or sets - behavior, physiology of birds - that I wish to understand the relationship between.

For the behavioral set I've measured three (somewhat related) variables, all quantitative. For the physiological set I've measured four (somewhat related) variables, all quantitative.

What options do I have for reducing each of these two sets to a [single] dimension so that I can correlate the two? The additional challenge is that I do not have a large sample size ($N=25$ individual birds).

• This has been unanswered now for a week. To make somebody helping a little more probable, you should better describe your real problem in the language of the application. So, what is your variables? – kjetil b halvorsen Oct 2 '16 at 13:30
• Canonical correlations suggested by mdewey is probably what comes to mind first. It is a multivariate, dimensionality-reducing correlation analysis between sets of variables. – ttnphns Oct 2 '16 at 16:41