PSY201H1 Chapter Notes - Chapter 3: Central Tendency, Multimodal Distribution
Document Summary
Often a researcher calculates all three (median, mean, mode) for a single set of data. This is because they are all trying to measure the same thing, thus it is reasonable to expect that these three values should be related. There are situations in which all three measures will have exactly the same value but also the opposite. Relationships among the mean, median, and mode are determined by the shape of the distribution. The right-hand side of the graph is a mirror image of the left hand side. Median - exactly at the center because exactly half of the area in the graph will be on either side of the center. Mean - exactly at the center of a perfectly symmetrical distribution because each score on the left is balanced by a corresponding score (mirror image) on the right. If a symmetrical has only one mode, it will also be in the center of the distribution.
