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Illusory Correlation: How to Spot This Common Mental Error
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Illusory correlation
An illusory correlation happens when we mistakenly over-emphasize one outcome and ignore the others.
Example: you visit a big city, you have 2 or 3 negative experiences and in the end, you conclude that people living in big cities are rude. But you are forgetting all the other perfectly normal and nice encounters you had with the people that live there because they were not notable.
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Our selective memory
We tend to overestimate the importance of events we can easily recall and underestimate the importance of events we have trouble recalling.
The easier it is to remember, the more likely we are to create a strong relationship between two things that are weakly related or not related at all.
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Examples of illusory correlations
- We know about Bill Gates or Mark Zuckerberg dropping out of college to start a billion-dollar business and we over-value that story in our heads. Meanwhile, we never really hear about all of the college dropouts that fail to start a successful company.
- We hear about a person from a particular ethnic or racial background getting arrested and we assume all people with that background are more likely to be involved in crime. We don't take into consideration the 99 percent of people who don't get arrested because it is a non-event.
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Dealing with change
And here’s a secret: actually, we’re always in times of change. If you’re waiting for things to settle down, it’s a beau...
How our mind reacts to change
- It complains. It doesn’t like change that it didn’t choose.
- It gets angry at others. It blames and might lash out at them.
- It looks for comfort, for a return to what you’re used to, what you know, what you’ve always gone to for comfort.
- It tries to get control. This can be stressful, trying to control the massively uncontrollable.
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Full Moon Insomnia And Weird Behaviors
Despite the lack of scientific evidence, many people believe in the moon's ability to change their behaviour and hold an uncanny power over them.
Hospitals, police stat...
Medical Beliefs And Moon Influences
A study published in The World Journal Of Surgery in 2011 explicitly pointed out that more than 40 per cent of medical staff is convinced that the lunar phases affect human behaviour.
This was later ‘debunked’ as subjective, citing a scientific analysis.
The Transylvania Effect
The academic literature in the 90s termed the effect of the lunar cycle on humans and even entire populations as the Transylvania Effect.
This is the belief that the moon produces psychological and physiological disturbances in the body and mind and can also be found in ancient literature.
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Hardwired for Stories
We love to tell and listen to stories. The 'Story Narrative' is hardwired in us, as we think and remember in stories.
A strong narrative can be the difference between succes...
Creative Problem Solving
Human beings are able to creatively solve problems, alone or in a group. This has given rise to many inventions, shaping common goals shared by a group of people.
We needed a 'sticky' idea to spread it among people, and the story narrative is exactly that.
Relating To The Characters
Stories cater to our Ego. A listener puts himself in the shoes of the protagonist of a story, and an idea is given emotional heft and sturdiness.
The more we are able to relate to the central character, the more engaging, effective and memorable a story narrative becomes.