We propose a non-iterative approach to extract the unknown phase shift in phase shifting interferometry without the assumption of equal distribution of measured phase in [0,2π]. According to the histogram of the phase difference between two adjacent frames, the phase shift can be accurately extracted by finding the bin of histogram with the highest frequency. The main factors that influence the accuracy of the proposed method are analyzed and discussed, such as the random noise, the quantization bit of CCD, the number of fringe patterns used and the bin width of histogram. Numerical simulations and optical experiments are also implemented to verify the effectiveness of this method.