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Home→The Westburn Dictionary of Marketing→D→deviation

deviation

Definition:
Departure from the normal. (1) In the behavioural sciences deviant behaviour is that which differs from the norms of the deviant's culture or subculture. (2) In statistics the term has a precise technical meaning in that deviation measures the spread of data around the MEAN or average value of the data as a whole. Based upon the parameters of the NORMAL DISTRIBUTION it is known that 99 per cent of all observations will be within plus or minus 3 standard deviation of the mean. Thus if we know the mean and standard deviation of a POPULATION we can draw informed conclusions as to the actual distribution of that population as a whole.

Cross-References:
[mean] [normal distribution] [error] [sampling]

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© Westburn Publishers Ltd 2002, The Westburn Dictionary of Marketing edited by Michael J Baker, ISBN 978-0-946433-01-8. www.themarketingdictionary.com. Entry: [Michael J. Baker], [1998].