Involving or containing more than one variable or factor simultaneously. In statistics and mathematics, refers to analysis or functions that depend on multiple independent variables.
Formed from Latin 'multi-' meaning 'many' and 'variate' from 'variatus,' past participle of 'variare' meaning 'to vary.' The term emerged in 20th-century statistics as researchers needed to analyze increasingly complex datasets with multiple influencing factors.
Multivariate analysis revolutionized fields from psychology to economics by acknowledging that real-world phenomena rarely have single causes. Before its development, researchers often oversimplified complex relationships, leading to the famous statistical warning that 'correlation doesn't imply causation' becoming even more critical.
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