Concepedia

Abstract

To the student of social phenomena, the statistical method has proved of the greatest importance. Sociological investigators are using statistics more and more frequently to objectify social changes and relationships. While statistical presentation has been found to be a valuable scientific device, its psychological importance has also come to be fully realized, for to most people and particularly to him who is not fully aware of the nature and the limitations of statistics, numbers carry in themselves something of a categorical imperative. Jacquart has aptly voiced this fact: