the standard deviation can be defined as the
For example, in the population {4, 8}, the mean is 6 and the deviations from mean are {-2, 2}. Those deviations squared are {4, 4} the average of which (the variance) is 4. Therefore, the standard deviation is 2. In this case 100% of the values in the population are at one standard deviation of the mean. The standard deviation is the most common measure of statistical dispersion, measuring how widely spread the values in a data set are. If the data points are close to the mean, then the standard deviation is small.