PSY 201 Chapter Notes - Chapter 3: Dependent And Independent Variables, Central Tendency

• School: Stony Brook University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSY 201
• Professor: Brenda Anderson

Document Summary

Central tendency - a statistical measure to determine a single score that defines the center of a distribution. The goal of central tendency is to find the single score that is most typical or most. Mean - (the arithmetic average) the sum of the scores divided by the number of scores. representative of the entire group. The (cid:373)ea(cid:374) is also the a(cid:373)ou(cid:374)t ea(cid:272)h i(cid:374)di(cid:448)idual re(cid:272)ei(cid:448)es (cid:449)he(cid:374) the total (cid:894) x(cid:895) is di(cid:448)ided equally among all of the individuals (n) in the distribution. The mean is also a balance point for the distribution. The (cid:449)eighted (cid:373)ea(cid:374): m= x (cid:894)o(cid:448)erall su(cid:373) for the (cid:272)o(cid:373)(cid:271)i(cid:374)ed group(cid:895)/n (total number in the combined group). Changing the value of any score changes the mean. Adding a new score to a distribution, or removing an existing score, usually changes the mean. If a constant value is added or subtracted from every score in a distribution, the same constant is added or subtracted from the mean.