An increase in kurtosis is achieved through the location‐ and scale‐free movement of probability mass from the “shoulders” of a distribution into its centre and tails. We introduce a coherent structure of ordering and measures, requiring no symmetry assumption, that represent different formalizations of this movement. For this purpose spread functions and spread‐spread plots are defined. The orderings impose growth patterns on the spread‐spread plot of the distributions involved, and the weakest involve both a specific scale‐matching technique and placement of “shoulders”. The role of existing kurtosis orderings and measures in this general context is identified and examples discussed throughout.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.