tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33845660.post9081142695891535092..comments2024-02-22T00:30:25.241-05:00Comments on Robert's EFT Scotland-California Blog: What is a Standard Deviation?Robert Elliotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07298419046974791490noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33845660.post-63814984996880968532010-01-18T18:10:16.392-05:002010-01-18T18:10:16.392-05:00Thanks again for all your input, and for being ope...Thanks again for all your input, and for being open and accessible- plenty for me to ponder here.<br /><br />I think I get a sense of why it is difficult to explain in ordinary language!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33845660.post-29907564822518574472010-01-18T16:33:26.011-05:002010-01-18T16:33:26.011-05:00The one-session therapy with a silent therapist is...The one-session therapy with a silent therapist is a classic example of what is called an "outlier" -- a case that is different enough from the rest of the cases to in fact represent a different population. Outliers are always interesting to look at, because they are most likely to surprise us, and being surprised means that we are learning something new. However, this case tells us nothing about the rest of the clients...Robert Elliotthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07298419046974791490noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33845660.post-79884203110099356822010-01-18T11:26:52.334-05:002010-01-18T11:26:52.334-05:00Thank you once again for taking the trouble to exp...Thank you once again for taking the trouble to expand further on this.<br /><br />So, hopefully without stretching your patience, if I have understood you correctly (and to use a different context): there is, say, research analysis of 50 therapeutic relationships of clients suffering from severe depression to determine effectiveness of outcomes.<br /><br />20 of the clients require an average of 40 sessions to satisfactorily manage their depression, whereas 29 clients require an average of 30 sessions.<br /><br />However there is only one client who is relieved of their depression in only one therapeutic session. <br /><br />Upon analysis of this one session it is found that the therapist was almost totally silent and undemonstrative- and this differed significantly from the behaviour of the therapists in the other 49 samples. <br /><br />As far as the Standard deviation is concerned, of the 50 therapeutic relationships scrutinized this is the least interesting because the variables in the other samples represent more frequently occurring phenomena (i.e. therapeutic interactions over a greater span of time than this one example, and more therapist activity)?<br /><br />We don't learn as much, in other words, giving this one single-session example our scrutiny and analysis, as we do examining the clusters around the averages of the other sessions (assuming the deviations from the average aren't consistently extreme in the other samples).Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33845660.post-48616042614939578192010-01-17T12:21:56.577-05:002010-01-17T12:21:56.577-05:00It's not so much looking at smaller effects, w...It's not so much looking at smaller effects, which tend to diminish toward being not very interesting, but rather embracing the variability pointed to by the standard deviation in order to see if we can understand it better. Some of this can be done quantitatively, but much of it then becomes territory for qualitative exploration. Under these circumstances, your pip-preferring apple-eater becomes more interesting, and we begin to wonder about his/her experience and whether the rest of us might be missing out on something nutritionally or otherwise.Robert Elliotthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07298419046974791490noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33845660.post-25511549082961581762010-01-17T08:36:25.729-05:002010-01-17T08:36:25.729-05:00Thank you for explaining the standard deviation, h...Thank you for explaining the standard deviation, here, Professor Elliot. My apple-eaters are obviously rather too few for you to be taxed by their variety! <br /><br />Your original post seemed to point to a fundamental shift in our way of perceiving things ("Bartokian dissonances") if we are to analyze SD's in relation to more complex phenomena such as therapeutic outcomes? <br /><br />If I have begun to understand the potential value of your research in terms of our capacity to shift our perceptual position: does it lie in the area of paying greater attention to the statistically smaller outcome, which nevertheless has within in it a constant? Or have I missed the point?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33845660.post-90765650097369158082010-01-15T16:07:02.800-05:002010-01-15T16:07:02.800-05:00Actually, there are three variables here, correspo...Actually, there are three variables here, corresponding to what parts of the apple each person ate: the noncore part, the core w/ or w/o pips, and the pips. We can assign a value of 1 if that part was eaten and a value of 0 if that part was not eaten. This results in the following:<br />1. Everyone ate the noncore part of the apple, which means that there was a mean of 1 and and a standard deviation of 0. That makes this variable a constant, because it doesn't vary (i.e., it's not really a variable at all). It's all common; there is no variation.<br />2. Two out of 5 people ate the nonpip part of the core. This is a mean of .4 (or 40%), with an SD of .55. For a 0 - 1 scale and n = 5, that's a lot of variability, technically as much as it is possible to have.<br />3. One out of 5 people ate the pips also. This variable has a mean of .2 and an SD of .45.<br /><br />On the other hand, it's probably more sensible to analyze this situation qualitatively, in which case we could conclude the following: <br />1. Eating the noncore part of the apple and avoiding the pips are each general themes, defined as occurring in all or all but one of the instances.<br />2. Eating the noncore part of the apple and throwing away all of the core is a typical theme, occurring in at least half of the examples. <br />3. Eating the core is a variant theme, defined as occurring in more than one example and less than half.<br />4. Eating the pips is a unique theme, defined as occurring in only one example.Robert Elliotthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07298419046974791490noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33845660.post-21283049489794193052010-01-12T05:10:40.532-05:002010-01-12T05:10:40.532-05:00So, if there are five people eating one apple each...So, if there are five people eating one apple each and only one person eats the core-pips and all- and all the other people except one other puts all their apple cores in the trash, except this one person, who eats their core but spits out the pips, then the SD score is the nature of the common variation (that they ate some of the core that the others didn't eat anything of) between the two who didn't put their cores in the trash?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com