statistics

(noun)

Numerical values that give information about a sample of individuals or things, where the sample is a smaller subset of a population of interest.

Related Terms

Examples of statistics in the following topics:

  • Basic Inferential Statistics

    • When psychologists want to test a research hypothesis, they will usually need to use statistical inference.
    • Statistical inference makes propositions about a population by using a sample, which is data drawn from that population.
    • These values are called statistics.
    • Statistical inference therefore literally helps us make inferences about the characteristics of populations (their parameters) from characteristics of our sample (statistics).
    • It is up to the researcher to decide which statistical test is the correct fit for their data.

  • Descriptive and Correlational Statistics

    • Descriptive and correlational statistics help interpret the relationship, or relatedness, between observable variables.
    • Descriptive and correlational statistics are used in psychology to describe data and illustrate the results.
    • As the name suggests, descriptive statistics describe how the data looks.
    • These statistics are not used to make any inferences from the collected data in relation to any population outside of the sample group.
    • Tools used for descriptive statistics include quantitative measures such as the mean, median, and mode, as well as a distribution curve.

  • Basic Descriptive Statistics

    • The goal of statistics is to summarize data in a manner that allows for easy descriptions or inferences to be made.
    • Statistics deals with the collection, analysis, interpretation, and presentation of numerical data.
    • The goal of statistics is to summarize data in a manner that allows for easy descriptions or inferences to be made.
    • Descriptive statistics involves two major aspects of data: central tendency and variance.
    • Explain the descriptive statistics used to measure central tendency and variability

  • Psychology and the Scientific Method: From Theory to Conclusion

    • To determine whether a hypothesis is supported or not supported, psychological researchers must conduct hypothesis testing using statistics.
    • Hypothesis testing is a type of statistics that determines the probability of a hypothesis being true or false.
    • If hypothesis testing reveals that results were "statistically significant," this means that there was support for the hypothesis and that the researchers can be reasonably confident that their result was not due to random chance.
    • If the results are not statistically significant, this means that the researchers' hypothesis was not supported.
    • These papers include an Introduction, which introduces the background information and outlines the hypotheses; a Methods section, which outlines the specifics of how the experiment was conducted to test the hypothesis; a Results section, which includes the statistics that tested the hypothesis and state whether it was supported or not supported, and a Discussion and Conclusion, which state the implications of finding support for, or no support for, the hypothesis.

  • Correlational Research

    • Statistical testing must be done to determine if a correlation is significant.
    • With smaller sample sizes, it can be easy to obtain a large correlation coefficient but difficult for that correlation coefficient to achieve statistical significance.
    • In contrast, with large samples, even a relatively small correlation of .20 may achieve statistical significance.

  • Classifying Abnormal Behavior: The DSM

    • Although a number of classification systems have been developed over time for the diagnosis of mental disorders, the one that is used by most mental health professionals in the United States is the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), published most recently in its 5th edition (known as the "DSM-5") by the American Psychiatric Association in 2013.
    • The initial impetus for developing a classification of mental disorders in the United States was the need to collect statistical information.
    • It claims to collect them together based on statistical or clinical patterns.
    • The latest edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, the DSM-5, published in 2013.

  • IQ Tests

    • It is a statistical law that under a normal curve, 68% of scores will lie between -1 and +1 standard deviation, 95% of scores will lie between -2 and +2 standard deviations, and >99% percent of scores will fall between -3 and +3 standard deviations.
    • IQ tests are a type of psychometric (person-centric) testing thought to have very high statistical reliability.
    • They are also thought to have high statistical validity, which means that they measure what they actually claim to measure, intelligence.

  • Evaluating the Biological Perspective on Personality

    • These measures of personality are very compatible with statistical analyses and provide an easily administered and measurable definition of personality.

  • Dissociation

    • The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders groups all dissociative disorders into a single category.

  • Heuristics and Cognitive Biases

    • A common example of this phenomenon would be when people form false associations between membership in a statistical minority group and rare (typically negative) behaviors.
    • In reality, statistically meaningless data or null findings are common, which is why researchers typically conduct multiple studies to examine their research questions.