Statistics for the Rest of Us: Mastering the Art of Understanding Data Without Math Skills (Advanced Thinking Skills Book 4)

One effect psychologists study is the availability heuristic, which refers to how easy it is to draw up an example of what you believe.[xxiv]

Pitfall #4: Failing to see biases

Question 3: Given the data, is the conclusion drawn a logical one?

Averages give us some information but not all the information we might need to understand a situation.

In other words, she has a sense of the average, or mean, amount of time she needs for each task.

P-values are a probability and thus are expressed as a number between zero and one. Lower p-values mean that results are more statistically significant; higher p-values mean the results may be due to chance.

Once again, the median might have given you a better sense of how you did in comparison to others, and you might have felt even better about your grade.

Pitfall #3: Confusing Correlation with Causation

In your everyday life, you don’t need to know the formula or even have a solid mathematical understanding of the theorem to use its basic principle.