Jove
Visualize
Contact Us
JoVE
x logofacebook logolinkedin logoyoutube logo
ABOUT JoVE
OverviewLeadershipBlogJoVE Help Center
AUTHORS
Publishing ProcessEditorial BoardScope & PoliciesPeer ReviewFAQSubmit
LIBRARIANS
TestimonialsSubscriptionsAccessResourcesLibrary Advisory BoardFAQ
RESEARCH
JoVE JournalMethods CollectionsJoVE Encyclopedia of ExperimentsArchive
EDUCATION
JoVE CoreJoVE BusinessJoVE Science EducationJoVE Lab ManualFaculty Resource CenterFaculty Site
Terms & Conditions of Use
Privacy Policy
Policies

Related Experiment Videos

Pseudocontingencies.

Klaus Fiedler1, Peter Freytag

  • 1Department of Psychology, University of Heidelberg, Heidelberg, Germany. kf@psychologie.uni-heidelberg.de

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
|October 20, 2004
PubMed
Summary
This summary is machine-generated.

Related Concept Videos

You might also read

Related Articles

Articles linked to this work by shared authors, journal, and citation graph.

Sort by
Same author

Flexible Diagnosticity in Person Impression Formation: An Integrative Framework.

Personality & social psychology bulletin·2026
Same author

Pitting base rate driven heuristics against conditional reasoning in multivariate contingency assessment.

Journal of experimental psychology. Learning, memory, and cognition·2025
Same author

Rivals reloaded: Adapting to sample-based speed-accuracy trade-offs through competitive pressure.

Journal of experimental psychology. Learning, memory, and cognition·2024
Same author

An exploration of physics envy with implications for desiderata of psychology theories.

The American psychologist·2024
Same author

Dynamics of Endothelial Cell Diversity and Plasticity in Health and Disease.

Cells·2024
Same author

Using theoretical constraints and the TASI taxonomy to delineate predictably replicable findings.

Psychonomic bulletin & review·2024
Same journal

Outgroup friendships and social influence in the development of adolescent attitudes toward secondary outgroups.

Journal of personality and social psychology·2026
Same journal

The impact of "relational" Artificial Intelligence on human well-being: A self-determination theory analysis.

Journal of personality and social psychology·2026
Same journal

Is my loneliness killing me? Effects of loneliness and social isolation on transitions between cognitive status categories and death.

Journal of personality and social psychology·2026
Same journal

Listening across the divide: High-quality listening promotes speakers' state well-being through basic psychological need satisfaction during disagreements.

Journal of personality and social psychology·2026
Same journal

Morality cut both ways: The role of cognition and emotion in attitude moralization and demoralization.

Journal of personality and social psychology·2026
Same journal

The predictive validity of vocational interests for life outcomes across adulthood.

Journal of personality and social psychology·2026
See all related articles

People often perceive a relationship between two things, pseudocontingency (PC), even when no real link exists. This cognitive illusion arises from inferring bivariate contingencies from univariate distributions.

Area of Science:

  • Cognitive Psychology
  • Social Psychology
  • Decision Making

Background:

  • Cognitive illusions can lead to unwarranted inferences.
  • Pseudocontingency (PC) describes inferring relationships from prevalence data.
  • Heuristic alignment processes contribute to PC formation.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To explore the cognitive illusion of pseudocontingency (PC).
  • To investigate the conditions under which PCs are evoked.
  • To understand the origin and adaptive value of PCs.

Main Methods:

  • Three experiments were conducted to measure PCs.
  • Predictions of one variable's level from another served as the PC measure.
  • Information was presented successively or simultaneously, activating different causal models.

Related Experiment Videos

Main Results:

  • Pseudocontingency (PC) illusions were reliably evoked.
  • The illusion persisted across various presentation formats and causal models.
  • The number of attribute levels did not prevent PC formation.

Conclusions:

  • PCs represent a cognitive illusion stemming from heuristic alignment.
  • These illusions can produce logically unwarranted but potentially useful inferences.
  • Understanding PCs offers insights into cognitive processes and their adaptive value.