Final answer:
The inclusion of an outlier in a data set affects the mean significantly because it is calculated by averaging all values, but does not have a substantial impact on the median unless the outlier alters the middle position upon ordering.
Step-by-step explanation:
In statistics, an outlier is a data point that is significantly different from other observations in a data set. These outliers can greatly effect certain measures of central tendency, namely the mean, median, and mode. When considering which measure of central tendency would change if an outlier is included in the data set 13, 36, 280, it's important to note that the mean is sensitive to outliers as it includes all data points in its calculation.
Therefore, including an outlier would change the mean substantially. On the other hand, the median, being the middle value once the data is ordered, would not change as drastically unless the outlier is positioned in the middle of the data set upon ordering. In the given data set, if 280 is the outlier, it will significantly affect the mean but not the median, as the median is the middle number which is 36.