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The present research examines the role of categorical perception (McGarry, Haslam, Turner, & Oakes, 1993) in the illusory correlation paradigm. This approach assumes that the search for meaningful differences between two stimulus groups can lead to the illusory correlation effect. This explanation is investigated in Study 1 by presenting participants with constrained stimulus information and examining whether accentuating evaluative differences between stimuli could provide a basis for illusory correlation. Results of this study (N = 64) revealed illusory correlation effects that were related to evaluative reinterpretations of the stimuli. Study 2 (AT= 19) focused on the causal relation between illusory correlation and accentuation effects, using the thinking-aloud technique. Detailed analyses of each participants' behaviour indicated that illusory correlation can arise from actively seeking intergroup differences and that reinterpretations of stimuli and the perception of illusory correlation were mutually reinforcing. Implications of these results for stereotyping processes are discussed.
I'm sure I didn't mean-' Alice was beginning, but the Red Queen interrupted her impatiently. 'Thats just what I complain of! You should have meant! What do you suppose is the use if a child without any meaning? Even a joke should have some meaning-'
L. Carroll, 1960, p. 319
In order to make sense of the world, we often go beyond the given information. However, in this inferential process, we sometimes arrive at erroneous conclusions or judgments. One of these 'incorrect' judgments is called `illusory correlation'. That is, people sometimes perceive an erroneous covariation between two sets of events. These illusory correlations have been widely researched in social psychology, partly because this mechanism could offer an explanation for the acquisition of stereotypes about minorities. In the present study we investigated the processes which produce the illusory correlation effect. More specifically, we investigated the possibility that illusory correlation arises as a product of categorical perception (McGarty, Haslam, Turner, & Oakes, 1993).
The term `illusory correlation' refers to the perception of covariation between two classes of stimuli which are uncorrelated or less strongly correlated than perceived. Hamilton and Gifford (1976) developed a now familiar paradigm to demonstrate the illusory correlation effect. They showed that the combination of a (statistically) infrequent behaviour and an infrequently encountered group was overestimated, producing what is termed a `distinctiveness-based illusory correlation'. According...