The correct characteristic of a normal distribution from the provided options is:
Approximately 68 percent of the data will be within one standard deviation of the mean.
In a normal distribution, about 68% of the data falls within one standard deviation from the mean, about 95% falls within two standard deviations, and about 99.7% falls within three standard deviations, which is often referred to as the empirical rule or the 68-95-99.7 rule.