Bonferroni Correction
Hypothesis Testing
The Simplest Defense Against False Positives
The Bonferroni correction controls the family-wise error rate by dividing α by the number of tests. It is conservative but guarantees rigorous error control in any testing situation.
- Clinical Trials — Protecting against false positives in multi-endpoint studies
- Genome-Wide Association Studies — Controlling errors across millions of genetic markers
- Post-Hoc Analysis — Correcting for multiple comparisons after data exploration
Simplicity and rigor make Bonferroni the gold standard for error control.
The simplest correction for multiple testing: divide α by the number of tests.
Or equivalently: multiply each p-value by m and compare to original α.