tension law

a concept that any deviation from an organism’s optimal level of external conditions (e.g., temperature, atmospheric pressure) produces a state of tension. Compare homeostasis.

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Psychology term of the day

November 22nd 2024

asymptotic method

any statistical procedure for estimating a population quantity that becomes more accurate as the number of observations involved in the calculation increases. Asymptotic methods use assumptions—including efficiency, normality, and symmetry—that generally are not absolutely true for finite samples but that become steadily more true as sample sizes increase. Also called large-sample method.