So often in the world today, society tries to find an explanation for everything we see. Whether it be the belief that Dobermans and Pitbulls are inherently dangerous dog breeds, the ritual of wearing the same jersey every time your favorite team plays because they won the first time you wore it, or the superstition that seeing a black cat brings bad luck, people are always looking for cause and effect relationships, even though a relationship between two variables may not exist. In fact, there are two words that, when put together, capture this tendency – illusory correlation.

To completely grasp what illusory correlation is, one must understand what a correlation is. Simply put, correlation is the measure of the strength of a relationship between two variables. Whether negative or positive, correlation strength ranges from positive (+) to negative (-) 1, with 0 being essentially no correlation. Although correlations are very useful for psychological research, misconceptions can quickly form from them. Even though two things maintain a relationship, it doesn’t mean there is a cause and effect relationship between them. The problem arises when people attribute causation to correlation.

However, correlation does not equal causation. This is where illusory correlations come into play through superstitions, stereotypes, prejudices, and imagined patterns in the environment.  I’m very aware of my own tendency for linking two unrelated events together. For instance, I frequently find myself looking at tall people while walking around campus and automatically thinking they’re Penn State athletes of some kind. The belief that blondes are dumb is another example that is popular amongst the population, and is one that sometimes creeps into the back of my mind. There are also instances where stereotypes (such as the aforementioned) get us into trouble. Without going into specifics, there are many times when I attribute a negative cause and effect relationship to events involving race or gender even when there isn’t any merit behind it.

I find that it’s incredibly easy and perhaps instinctive to automatically say that because two things seem to have a relationship, one is the cause of the other. No matter how logically or scientifically we try to think, the idea that correlation equals causation is one that will most likely always pervade the minds of the people.