Question

Distribution, central tendency and stand deviation.

I cannot wrap my head around this one. Chapter 2.2 of the Intro to Pychology book:

the point in the distribution around which the data are centered is the central tendency and
Used in a sentence: The arithmetic mean is the most commonly used measure of central tendency.

Also connected and annoying me is Dispersion which refers to the extent to which the scores are all tightly clustered around the central tendency. AND The standard deviation is the most commonly used measure of dispersion. I do not get ANY of this.

Answer 1

This is where statistics overlaps psychology.

If you look at graphed data points, they are just dots.

Depending on how predictably the abscissa (x-axis) and ordinate (y-axis) values relate can be shown through statistical models.

Answer 2

When they talk about the distribution, central tendency and standard deviation, they are looking at how wide a range there is between the changes in x and y. When you graph a line, it uses some \(y=mx+b\) form and there is no deviation from this. But with random dots, they are sometimes higher or lower than a line would be.



If a few data points are really far from the line, they are called outliers. On the other hand, if there is no sort of line and the dots are just all over, well, then there may be no relation.