Statistical procedures are of particular importance in the behavioral sciences because of the need for data reduction and abstraction. Because of the variability of human behavior, the study of single individuals contributes little to the search for general consistencies. Groups of people must be studied in order to avoid the danger of generalizing from an atypical person.
Statistics, then, refers to a set of techniques for describing groups of data and for making decisions in the absence of complete information. Generally speaking, there are two types of group statistics. Descriptive statistics means we are describing a group in terms of averages or some other numerical measurement, whereas inferential statistics is the series of techniques used to determine, for example, the probability that particular samples of observations are only the result of chance variation.
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