Illusory or False Correlations

The tendency people have to connect things that aren’t connected. Sometimes a person genuinely believes these connections are true, but other times it’s just a manipulation tool. Politicians do it all of the time.

For instance, a new mayor is elected. When the mayor takes office in January, crime in the city falls 10%. The mayor immediately claims it’s due to his election. In reality, it’s because the previous mayor received funding to double the police force and criminals stopped committing crimes, or moved to other cities.

The new mayor is using a false correlation to manipulate the public into believing he’s already awesome, even though he just started and it was really the previous mayor’s actions that lead to the crime reduction.