If your research sample is properly constructed this gives you an ability to generalise any results and conclusions about them onto the target population from which your sample came.

An inference made from a sample to a population. The researcher attempts to extend the results of his/her study to a much larger group of people. Ho: See Null hypothesis.

In an experiment, a generalisation of the results occurs when one applies the findings found in a sample of participants to the population. For example, the findings from a study involving a small number of anxious students might be generalised to all anxious individuals. If the study found that the more anxious participants recalled more in a memory test than did less anxious participants, it may be tempting to conclude that anxiety causes improvements in memory. In this way, a generalisation can be seen to be the abstraction of a rule about behaviour from a single study.

The cognitive process by which parts of a person's internal experience separates from the original experience becoming a separate generalised pattern. This can be useful as when a child touches a stove top and gets burnt, the child generalises to "burners are hot", or "don't touch stoves when they are on". It can be limiting in other cases, eg a child is yelled at by a woman in a red dress, and generalises to "people in red dresses should be avoided".

the process of formulating general concepts by abstracting common properties of instances

The smoothing of lines on a map so that the outline becomes less complex, or the simplification of the image of a map as for instance occurs when scale changes are made from large to small.

The concept that something taught in one situation with a particular person can be applied to other places with other people.

an idea having general application; "he spoke in broad generalities"

(psychology) transfer of a response learned to one stimulus to a similar stimulus

The relationship that holds between a more specific class and a more general class. (The inverse of specialisation.)

reasoning from detailed facts to general principles