Question

Can the standard deviation ever be negative?

Answer 1

Standard deviation:

• The standard deviation is defined as the deviation of the values or data from an average mean.
• If there are $2$ unequal terms in the observations, the standard deviation is positive, which means greater than $0$.
• If all the observations are exactly equal, then the standard deviation is exactly $0$.
• So, the standard deviation can be $0$ or greater than zero always.

Hence, the standard deviation never is negative.