We introduce a heuristic called pseudocontingencies (PCs) as an alternative account of
various stereotyping phenomena. PCs give rise to the expectation that attributes are …

Pseudoscience, superstitions, and quackery are serious problems that threaten public
health and in which many variables are involved. Psychology, however, has much to say …

The illusion of control consists of overestimating the influence that our behavior exerts over
uncontrollable outcomes. Available evidence suggests that an important factor in …

The term pseudocontingency (PC) denotes the logically unwarranted inference of a
contingency between 2 variables X and Y from information other than pairs of xi, yi …

In 3 experiments, the authors explored a contingency illusion termed pseudocontingency
(PC) that produces logically unwarranted but potentially useful inferences. PCs arise when …

The ability to extract statistical contingencies (eg, between cause and effect, between
response and feedback) is commonly presupposed as a basic module of adaptive behavior …

This chapter provides a review of recent research on distinctiveness-based illusory
correlations and spurious correlations in biased stereotype formation, with a particular focus …

Fluency is the experienced ease of ongoing mental operations, which increases the
subjective positivity of stimuli attributes. This may happen because fluency is inherently …

Pseudocontingencies are inferences of correlations between variables, like two options and
two outcomes, drawn on the basis of their skewed base rates covarying across a third …

Humans are evidently able to learn contingencies from the co-occurrence of cues and
outcomes. But how do humans judge contingencies when observations of cue and outcome …