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Illusory Correlation
Perception of a relationship between group and behavior where there was none.
Distinctiveness-based illusory correlation
Relationship is believed to assist between 2 variables as the result of special attention given to distinctive (infrequent) information
Expectancy-based illusory correlation
Mistakenly see relationships due to pre-existing expectations surrounding them.
Factors that influence
More prone to it when forming an opinion of a group when our cognitive resources are strained
Less demand on cognitive resources, the better placed to evaluate information we are as we receive it
Aging declines ability to reason and test hypotheses
Aging population may be more prone to illusory correlation due to lesser ability of on-line process information about the groups
Why does it occur?
Debate over processes that are responsible
Whether the impressions formed at the time of evaluative judgement:
is using information retrieved from memory or made on-line at the time information about group members' are received
Evaluative judgement
Hamilton and Gifford.
Suggested a memory advantage for minority group's undesirable behavior. As behaviors more salient, processed more and are more accessible from memory.
On-line processes suggest the groups are labeled as they must differ in some way
We seek to evaluate the groups as we receive information about them, generating hypotheses about how they differ.
