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Making the illusory correlation effect appear and then disappear: The effects
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Making the illusory correlation effect appear and then disappear: The
effects of increased learning
Robin A. Murphya; Stefanie Schmeerb; Frédéric Vallée-Tourangeauc; Esther Mondragónd; Denis Hiltone
a
Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK b School of Psychology,
University of Hertfordshire, Hatfield, UK c School of Social Science, Kingston University, Kingston-
upon-Thames, UK d Institute of Behavioural Neuroscience, University College London, London, UK e
Laboratoire Cognition, Langues, Langage, et Ergonomie (CLLE), University of Toulouse II-le Mirail,
Toulouse, France

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Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 64: 1, 24 — 40, First published on: 08 July 2010 (iFirst)
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 THE QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF EXPERIMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY
2011, 64 (1), 24 –40

Making the illusory correlation effect appear and then

disappear: The effects of increased learning

Robin A. Murphy
Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
Stefanie Schmeer
School of Psychology, University of Hertfordshire, Hatfield, UK
Frédéric Vallée-Tourangeau
School of Social Science, Kingston University, Kingston-upon-Thames, UK
Esther Mondragón
Institute of Behavioural Neuroscience, University College London, London, UK
Downloaded By: [Hilton, Denis] At: 18:29 6 January 2011

Denis Hilton
Laboratoire Cognition, Langues, Langage, et Ergonomie (CLLE), University of Toulouse II– le Mirail,
Toulouse, France

The acquisition of a negative evaluation of a fictitious minority social group in spite of the absence of
any objective correlation between group membership and negative behaviours was described by
Hamilton and Gifford (1976) as an instance of an illusory correlation. We studied the acquisition
and attenuation through time of this correlation learning effect. In two experiments we asked for par-
ticipants’ judgements of two fictitious groups using an online version of a group membership belief
paradigm. We tested how judgements of the two groups changed as a function of the amount of train-
ing they received. Results suggest that the perception of the illusory correlation effect is initially
absent, emerges with intermediate amounts of absolute experience, but diminishes and is eliminated
with increased experience. This illusory correlation effect can be considered to reflect incomplete
learning rather than a bias due to information loss in judgements or distinctiveness.

Keywords: Associative learning; Illusory correlation; Cognition.

The formation of attitudes or opinions about an
individual based solely on that person’s membership
in a particular group is a form of stereotyping. These
attitudes may also be the result of a perceived corre-
lation or association between an individual’s group
membership and various traits and behaviours.
It can be of course that these stereotypic associations
reflect actual correlations that exist in the “real”
world—alternatively, there may not be any objective
evidence to support such a belief. For instance, it has
been documented that certain minorities may be
considered to be criminal, even though studies of

Correspondence should be addressed to Robin A. Murphy, Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford, South Parks Road,
Oxford, OX1 3UD, UK. E-mail: robin.murphy@psy.ox.ac.uk
This research was supported by Grant R–000 –22–3688 from the Economic and Social Research Council. We would like to
thank Peter Sedlmeier, Eliot Smith, and Eva Walther for helpful comments on an earlier draft of this article.

24 # 2010 The Experimental Psychology Society

http://www.psypress.com/qjep DOI:10.1080/17470218.2010.493615

prison populations show that the minorities in ques-
tion are not overrepresented in prison populations
(e.g., Hamilton, 1981). Criminal behaviour is gen-
erally infrequent, which led Hamilton and Gifford
(1976) to propose a distinctiveness hypothesis that
infrequent behaviours are especially likely to be
associated to minority groups, as both are likely to
attract attention during the learning process. They
devised a learning task that showed that, as pre-
dicted, such illusory correlations emerge even
when the perceiver has no motivational grounds to
form either a positive or a negative stereotype of
the minority group in question.
Although Hamilton and Gifford’s (1976) results
have been replicated by many (for reviews see
Berndsen, Spears, van der Pligt, & McGarty,
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2002; McGarty & de la Haye, 1997), the findings
sit uneasily with another mass of experimental find-
ings in associative learning theory that provide
strong evidence that after sufficient learning people
are quite accurate judges of the correlation between
events in nonsocial domains (e.g., Shanks &
Dickinson, 1987; Vallée-Tourangeau, Murphy,
Drew, & Baker, 1998b). As we shall show, the key
prediction made by an associative learning model
(e.g., Rescorla & Wagner, 1972) is that illusory cor-
relations should be observed in the early phase of
learning, followed by attenuation and elimination
of this effect in the final phase of learning.
However, none of the social cognition accounts
based on distinctiveness (Hamilton & Gifford,
1976), information loss (Fiedler, 1991), or exemplars
(Smith, 1991) have been used to make this predic-
tion of sequential appearance followed by disappear-
ance of the illusory correlation effect. Indeed, the
information loss account of Fiedler (1991) and the
exemplar account (Smith, 1991) are sufficiently
well formalized that it is clear that they make pre-
cisely the opposite prediction—increased learning
will lead to increased illusory correlation.
The illusory correlation effect of stereotypes:
Current explanations
In Hamilton and Gifford’s (1976) demonstration
of an illusory correlation (IC) effect, people read
statements describing fictitious individuals, their
THE QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF EXPERIMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY, 2010, 64 (1)
ILLUSORY CORRELATION
group membership, and their engagement in beha-
viours. A member of either a majority or minority
group (A or B) was described as engaging in either
a desirable (positive) or an undesirable (negative)
behaviour. For example, a positive statement
might read “John, a member of Group A, visited
a sick friend in hospital”. These sentences were
presented one at a time to the participants, who
were expected to develop an overall impression of
the two groups and how likely they were to
engage in different types of behaviour. Positive
behaviours were those that people had previously
rated as being desirable, with negative statements
being undesirable. The ratio of positive to negative
behaviour statements (0.69: 0.31) was the same for
the two groups. However, participants were
exposed to twice as many statements about
people in Group A than about people in Group
B (i.e., Group A: 18:8; Group B: 9:4).
Importantly, given that the overall probability of
engaging in positive or negative behaviours was
the same for both Group A and Group B, the
overall contingency between group membership
and valence of behaviour was zero. If judgements
were based on some unbiased probabilistic judge-
ment then they should have thought that both
groups were as likely to engage in positive (or
negative) behaviours.
The learning phase was followed by a test of
attitudes and likeability. They found that the min-
ority group (i.e., B) was rated more negative than
the majority group (i.e., A). This was indicated
by more negative trait ratings for members of
Group B, more attributions of Group B member-
ship to negative behaviours, and an overestimation
of the frequency of negative behaviours in Group
B (see also Berndsen et al., 2002; Mullen &
Johnson, 1990).
The distinctiveness-based account
Hamilton and Gifford (1976) proposed that the
relative infrequency of the minority group’s
engagement in negative behaviours enhances the
distinctiveness of the pairings of the minority
(i.e., less frequent) group membership (i.e.,
Group B) with the less frequent behaviour type
25
 MURPHY ET AL.
(i.e., negative behaviours). At the time they were
somewhat agnostic as to how this enhanced dis-
tinctiveness caused the negative judgements.
They suggested that it could be via better encod-
ing, easier accessibility, or easier availability (e.g.,
Tversky & Kahneman, 1973).
An extension of Hamilton and Gifford’s (1976)
distinctiveness account, proposed by McConnell,
Sherman, and Hamilton (1994), suggested that
ultimate distinctiveness, rather than distinctive-
ness at the time of encoding, was crucial for the
occurrence of the IC effect. The notion of ultimate
distinctiveness avoids the problem of determining
what makes something distinctive until all the
events have been sampled. Once participants
make their judgement, the relative distinctiveness
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of the two groups is determined, and the bias is
expressed. McConnell et al. manipulated the
serial position of the minority group statements
relative to each other and relative to the time of
judgement, while keeping the total number—
that is, their ultimate distinctiveness—constant.
Results supported the ultimate distinctiveness
account. Therefore, as long as some information
was more distinctive (based on relatively less
exposure) then people would be biased in their
judgements.
The information loss account
Both Fiedler (1991; Fiedler, Russer, & Gramm,
1993) and Smith (1991) have proposed alternative
frequency-based accounts that do not rely on dis-
tinctiveness but rather on memory decay. For
them biased judgements result from impaired,
not enhanced, processing of the less frequent min-
ority group instances. Fiedler (1996, 2000a) argues
that both the Fiedler (1991) and Smith (1991)
models share the same essential properties, in
that the memories for the less frequent behaviour
associated with members of the minority group
are particularly likely to be lost from memory com-
pared to the more frequently experienced state-
ments associated with the majority group. From
this perspective the relatively well-encoded data
about the majority group allow the majority
group to be more highly rated. Fiedler argues
that such judgements are sensitive to the absolute
26 THE QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF EXPERIMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY, 2010, 64 (1)
difference between the number of presented posi-
tive and negative behaviours rather than simply
their relative difference.
Smith (1991, p. 118) explicitly argues that the
degree of IC perceived depends on the arithmetic
difference in frequencies of occurrence of the fre-
quent and infrequent events in the majority and
minority groups. As the arithmetic difference
increases mathematically with the number of
trials, this predicts further increase in IC with
further learning. According to Smith, the IC
effect observed after 72 trials will therefore be
twice as big as the IC effect observed after 36
trials. In turn, Fiedler (1991) suggests that “the
illusion should decrease with increasing sample
size” (p. 27) but quickly discards the prediction
as being predicated on an “impermissible
application of the Spearman –Brown formula”
(p. 27) that predicts more representative sampling
as a function of test lengthening (increasing
the number of statements). The application is
impermissible because of a number of auxiliary
assumptions Fiedler deems too compelling to
ignore about information load that taxes working
memory detrimentally: “Minority behaviour in
a long and demanding [italics added] series is
assessed less accurately . . . than minority behav-
iour in short and less demanding series” (Fiedler,
1991, p. 28).
Associative learning
In contrast, we argue that a simple associative
learning mechanism predicts that the illusory cor-
relation effect is the outcome of preasymptotic or
incomplete learning. Such a mechanism predicts
that (a) learning is faster about more frequent
events and slower about less frequent events; (b)
in the early phase of the learning curve, corre-
lations are overestimated; and (c) after a sufficient
number of trials, learning reaches asymptote
because associations have reached maximum
strength. Asymptotic learning in simple associative
models converges on the actual degree of corre-
lation between two variables (Chapman &
Robbins, 1990).

Associative learning theory
Associative models of cognition are primarily con-
cerned with characterizing the representations and
the acquisition process that underlie learning and
knowledge. In a wide range of domains of psychol-
ogy, learning of correlations between events has
been quite successfully predicted by theories that
principally rely on association formation for the
bulk of their explanatory power (e.g., Shanks,
2007). Phenomena as diverse as animal condition-
ing (Kremer, 1974; Murphy & Baker, 2004),
animal discrimination (Pearce, 1987), human cat-
egorization (Gluck & Bower, 1988), causal learn-
ing (e.g., Baker, Murphy & Vallée-Tourangeau,
1996; Shanks & Dickinson, 1988), individual
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differences in the perception of control (Msetfi,
Murphy, Simpson, & Kornbrot, 2005), preference
learning (Field, 2005), and language acquisition
(Ellis, 2006) have all been analysed from the
perspective of associative models.
Much work that explores an associative
account of causal learning in humans use simple
predictive tasks where participants experience
the repeated presence (or absence) of a predictor
event and the subsequent presence (or absence)
of an outcome (e.g., Vallée-Tourangeau,
Hollingsworth, & Murphy, 1998a). Thus the
task scenario may involve fictitious patients who
have a virus (or not) and who are diagnosed
with a disease (or not). The correlation between
the predictor and the outcome can be calculated,
and participants’ judgements of the predictor –
outcome relationship are assessed at different
points during the learning experience.
Correlational learning typically displays a
learning curve. Thus people typically overesti-
mate the contingency between the predictor and
the outcome in the early phases of learning, but
their judgements slope off to become remarkably
accurate at the final stage of learning. Despite
some claims that people are poor judges of
contingency (e.g., Baron, 2000; Fiedler, 2000b;
Fiedler, Freytag, & Meiser, 2009; Peterson,
1980; Smedslund, 1963), research has shown
that the human ability to learn online cause –
event relationships is both very general and
THE QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF EXPERIMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY, 2010, 64 (1)
ILLUSORY CORRELATION
accurate at asymptote, when learning has stabil-
ized (Murphy, Vallée-Tourangeau, Msetfi, &
Baker, 2005; Shanks & Dickinson, 1987, 1988;
Vallée-Tourangeau et al., 1998b). Online learn-
ing is typically accurate, in contrast with presen-
tation of correlational relationships in other
formats such as contingency tables (e.g., Vallée-
Tourangeau, Payton, & Murphy, 2008).
Associative learning theory attempts to
capture the acquisition process as well as the
final state of knowledge in a learning task.
Initially a positive association may form
between uncorrelated stimuli on the basis of
random pairings before this association gradually
extinguishes. In human causal learning, people
often attribute initial causal strength to a candi-
date cause that is in fact uncorrelated with a
target effect. However, with longer exposure,
causal ratings decrease and approach zero
(Shanks & Dickinson, 1987, 1988; for analogous
results in animals, see Kremer, 1974). By exten-
sion we speculated that the illusory correlation
effect might reflect a preasymptotic phase of
learning. Initially participants erroneously per-
ceive a correlation between group membership
and valence of behaviour, but with sufficient
training the effect might be expected to
disappear.
To understand the nature of this prediction we
present a brief overview of one commonly used
associative model that possesses the basic charac-
teristics necessary to predict the IC effect
(Rescorla – Wagner model; Rescorla & Wagner,
1972; RWM henceforth). We use this model
for the purposes of exposition because it is a
well-known and representative member of the
class of associative error correction learning
models that contain a delta rule. Any associative
model that calculates changes (the delta) in
association on the basis of an imposed limit on
learning should predict this basic finding (see
Sedlmeier, 2006, for a relevant theoretical dem-
onstration and Denrell, 2007, Fiedler, 2000b,
Van Rooy, Van Overwalle, Vanhoomissen,
Labiouse, & French, 2003, for other forms of
associative models developed to explain diverse
phenomena in social cognition).
27
 MURPHY ET AL.
The formal properties of an associative learning
model
In Hamilton and Gifford’s (1976) IC paradigm,
the associated events (groups and behavioural
statements) are similar to the associated events in
causal learning. Group membership labels are the
stimulus events that become associated with the
positive or negative affect induced by the behav-
ioural statements. The RWM was originally devel-
oped to describe the formation of associations
between representations of a conditioned stimulus
(CS, e.g., light) and an unconditioned stimulus
(US, e.g., food). Temporal contiguity between
the two events strengthens their association (V ),
but there is a limit to the total strength of any
association (l), and this limit allows learning
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models to predict the characteristic learning
curve in which learning gradually reaches an
asymptote, at which point learning stops. The
change in associative strength on any given trial
(DV ) is a function of the difference between the
lu˙and the associative strength acquired on pre-
vious trials. However, the RWM also proposed
that the associative strength (V ) acquired by a
single CS was determined not only by its own pre-
vious association with the US, but by the associ-
ations acquired
 by all other (n) cues present on a
given trial ( ni¼1V )
 

n it is the rate of acquisition and elimination of the
DV = ab l − V 1
i=1
where a and b represent learning-rate parameters
for the predictor (e.g., CS) and outcome (e.g., US),
respectively, with l representing the limit on the
total amount of associative strength. The formula
can be used to calculate predicted changes in
associative strength for a given cue presented on
a given trial. Rather than associating the labels
with the specific words and actions described in
each statement, we propose that statements
describing social interactions are associated with
the affective response elicited by the statements
1
Not shown in Figure 1 are the association strengths for the contextual cues; although included in the simulations, they are not
shown as they have no impact on this prediction, given that the strength of the background does not influence this prediction.
28 THE QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF EXPERIMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY, 2010, 64 (1)
(whether positive or negative, see Field, 2005, for
a review of the application of associative theory
to the development of preferences). The valence
of the affective response determines the direction
of the associative change. Positive statements cause
an increase of the association in a positive direction
and negative ones cause an increase in the negative
value of the association. On each trial then the
specific statement is hypothesized to cause a
change in the internal association between the
group label and the affective response or outcome.
The parameters a and b represent the associability
of the labels and the affective outcome; the
maximum amount of associative strength l was set
at +1 for positive statements and –1 for negative
statements. In addition to the associative strength
of the group labels A and B, the model also
assumes that associations form between the context
(X) and the outcome. These contextual cues are par-
ticularly important for predicting various cue compe-
tition effects in human learning (see Baker, Murphy,
Vallée-Tourangeau, & Mehta, 2001), but have no
impact on the predictions that we describe here.
We simulated the illusory correlation effect in
the Hamilton and Gifford (1976) paradigm
using the RWM. We used a particular set of par-
ameters and training trials to illustrate the effect,
but the effect is parameter independent assuming
standard assumptions about learning. In general
illusory correlation effect that is influenced by
changes in these values. The data from the simu-
lations are presented in the left-hand panel of
Figure 1. While the two originally neutral group
labels (A for the majority group and B for the min-
ority group) acquire positive associations, and the
associations are of similar strength by the end of
training, the model predicts that preasymptotically,
Group A will have a stronger positive association
than Group B. Thus, this simple associative learning
mechanism makes the prediction that the IC effect is
a result of incomplete learning. Therefore, it is not a
final outcome of the learning mechanism and should
diminish with sufficient training.1 Two other
 ILLUSORY CORRELATION
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Figure 1. Simulations applying the Rescorla–Wagner associative model (Rescorla & Wagner, 1972) to the three treatments described in
Experiments 1 and 2. The left panel (2:1 positive) represents the treatment described in Experiments 1 and 2. The simulation was run
with twice as many positive as negative statements and twice as many majority as minority group members. This treatment is similar to
the one described by Hamilton and Gifford (1976). The middle panel (5:1 positive) represents simulation data for the treatment
described in Experiment 2, with five times more positive than negative statements and twice as many majority as minority group
members. The right panel (5:1 majority) represents the data from the simulation of a majority group that was five times the size of the
minority group with the ratio of positive to negative statements again 2:1. The associability parameter for the group labels, a, was set at
.2 for both group labels, the associability parameter, b, for outcome presence and absence was set at .1, and the maximum amount of
associative strength, l, was set at 1 and –1 for the positive and negative statements, respectively; with these parameters the model was
run for 1,000 trials.

features of the predictions are worth noting. First,
with low levels of experience the model predicts
that the initially accrued associative strengths will
be similar for both groups, and therefore an illusory
correlation effect is expected to be absent. Second,
both groups should become associated with positive
affect. Neither of these predictions can be derived
from an account based on distinctiveness or one
based on memory loss since with low levels of
experience, distinctiveness should be high and
memory loss strongest. In spite of the fact that the
minority group is rated as less positive than the
majority group, the prediction is that both groups
will be rated more positively at the end of training
than at the outset. This prediction reflects the fact
that the model learns that a majority of the
statements describing both groups are positive. It
is unclear how this result is predicted by the distinc-
tiveness and frequency approaches (e.g., Hamilton
& Gifford, 1976). Finally, this type of associative
learning model contains no episodic memory of
the events. There are no hidden units or distributed
representations to deal with as the model represents
the problem in terms of two associations, one for
each group.
EXPERIMENT 1
The first experiment was a conceptual replication
of the original IC experiment, which allowed
learning effects to be evaluated. Participants were
thus presented with stimulus materials adapted
from those used by Hamilton and Gifford

THE QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF EXPERIMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY, 2010, 64 (1) 29

 MURPHY ET AL.
(1976), but were exposed to a total of 90 trials (39
used in the original). Participants were asked to
report their evaluations of the majority and min-
ority groups at regular intervals during training
in order to monitor the development of the IC
effect (in the original procedure, these evaluations
are only made at the end of the presentation). Over
90 trials, 67% of all the statements describing both
majority and minority group members were chosen
to suggest positive behaviours, with the remaining
33% suggesting negative behaviours (these pro-
portions result in a more balanced contingency
than the 69% and 31% used in Hamilton &
Gifford, 1976). Experiment 1 used the same
letter group labels (A and B) as those used in the
original IC demonstration.
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Method
Participants
The participants were 20 university students who
were given 3 GBP as honorarium for participation.
Apparatus and materials
A programme written in Visual Basic (RealBasic
Inc.) controlled the presentation of the stimuli
on an Apple computer. During the main training
phase participants were exposed to sentences
describing fictitious people engaging in various
behaviours. The sentences were written to be per-
ceived as either negative (e.g., “refused to assist an
old person who was lost”) or positive (e.g., “helped
friends to move house”). Given that we were inter-
ested in the relative effectiveness of these state-
ments to influence attitudes, we thought it was
important to equate, as closely as possible, the sen-
tences so that they elicited similar levels of affec-
tive responding. An initial pool of sentences was
generated and piloted on 12 students to assess
naı̈ve attitudes to these stimuli. Participants in
the pilot study were asked to rate each sentence
using a scale from 1 to 7 (with 1 representing an
extremely positive and 7 an extremely negative, 4
representing a neutral midpoint). The mean jud-
gements for the positive and negative sets of state-
ments were M ¼ 2.10 (SE ¼ 0.60) and M ¼ 5.75
(SE ¼ 0.85), respectively. Only those statements
30 THE QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF EXPERIMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY, 2010, 64 (1)
that fell within one standard deviation of the
mean were selected for use during the main
study. A total of 60 positive and 30 negative state-
ments were used.
Procedure
Participants signed a standard consent form, sat in
front of a desktop computer, and read a series of
instructions that informed them of the task
requirements. Participants were instructed to
read sentences that described members of two
fictitious groups labelled Group A and Group
B. They were told that they would be required to
make judgements about the two groups.
Sentences were presented on the monitor one at
a time, with no opportunity to return to previously
read sentences. The procedure was modelled
closely on the procedure used by Hamilton and
Gifford (1976), except that likeability judgements
were recorded 10 times following each block of 9
trials for a total of 90 statements. As with the orig-
inal experiment, Group A was always the majority
group, and Group B was always the minority
group. Of the total set of statements, 60 (i.e.,
67%) described behaviours that were generally
rated as describing positive or desirable behaviours
(e.g., “G.H., a member of Group A, helped an
elderly lady across the road”) while 30 (i.e., 33%)
of the statements described undesirable or negative
behaviours (e.g., “K.P., a member of Group A,
failed to return a borrowed item”). Likewise,
67% of the statements described members of the
majority group and 33% members of the minority
group. These proportions were preserved in each
block of 9 sentences (i.e., 4 statements described
positive behaviours of the majority group, 2 nega-
tive behaviours of the majority group, 2 positive
behaviours of the minority group, and 1 a negative
behaviour of the minority group). The order of
presentation within each block and between par-
ticipants was randomized.
Baseline ratings were collected immediately fol-
lowing the instructions, but before any exposure to
the sentences. Subsequent ratings occurred follow-
ing each block of 9 sentences; participants were
asked for their ratings of liking of the two
groups using a 7-point Likert scale with 7 referring

to “extremely like” and 1 referring to “extremely
dislike”. The order in which the ratings were gath-
ered was counterbalanced. Half the participants
were always asked to give their rating of the
majority group first while the other half were
asked to judge the minority group first.
Although all participants were asked to make jud-
gements about both groups, they were not told
which group corresponded to the majority or min-
ority groups.
Results and discussion
The mean ratings of liking in Experiment 1, our
measure of the participants’ newly formed attitudes
about the groups, are shown in Figure 2. Each
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block reflects judgements following 18 trials.
While there was no difference in ratings of the
two group labels at baseline, before the sentences
were presented, or during the initial blocks of train-
ing, ratings of the minority group (Group B), as
predicted, were lower than those of the majority
group (Group A) by the third block of trials. By
the end of training, final attitudes were more posi-
tive for both groups than at the outset, and there
was no significant difference in judgements of the
two groups. Ratings also showed a gradual positive
Figure 2. Mean liking ratings for fictitious groups (either A or B),
defined by the relative frequency of occurrence (majority or
minority). Statements involved 67% positive and 33% negative
behaviours in Experiment 1. Average ratings from two blocks (18
trials).
THE QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF EXPERIMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY, 2010, 64 (1)
ILLUSORY CORRELATION
increase across training. All statistical tests used a
.05 rejection level except where stated.
The baseline data were analysed separately from
the training data. This conservative decision
ensures that any initial differences that may have
confounded interpretation of the training data
were identified. The analysis of variance
(ANOVA) of the baseline judgements revealed
neither an effect of group (majority or minority)
nor an effect of question order (majority or min-
ority judged first) nor any interactions. The differ-
ence between ratings of the majority and minority
group was not reliable, F(1, 18) ¼ 1.00, p ¼ .33,
MSE ¼ 0.10, h2 ¼ .053. This finding confirms
that no initial bias in favour of the majority
Group A or minority Group B was present. A
direct analysis of judgements comparing baseline
and the last block of training, Block 5, confirmed
a reliable increase in likeability of both groups,
F(1, 18) ¼ 6.36, p ¼ .021, MSE ¼ 0.602, h2 ¼
.261, confirming our prediction that absolute like-
ability of both groups would increase as a result of
training. There were no effects of group or inter-
action for this analysis. This result indicates that
there was no difference in relative preference for
either group at the start or the end of training.
However, and as predicted by our associative
learning approach, at intermediate stages of train-
ing, the majority Group A was preferred to the
minority Group B. An overall group (majority or
minority) by question order (majority or minority
judged first) by block (1 – 5) mixed ANOVA was
conducted. For this overall analysis, the main
effect of block was statistically reliable, F(4, 72)
¼ 2.90, p ¼ .028, MSE ¼ 0.345, h2 ¼ .139.
Given that our hypothesis predicted that at the
beginning and at end of training there would be
no difference in liking ratings between the
groups, the omnibus nature of the interaction com-
ponent of the ANOVA is inappropriate to test our
hypothesis. We conducted interaction tests
looking for a quadratic component comparing
ratings at Block 1 with those at Block 3 and
Block 5 and found reliable interaction between
group and blocks. Judgements were different at
Block 3 than at the other two blocks, F(1, 18) ¼
8.75, p ¼ .001, MSE ¼ 0.220, h2 ¼ .327. We
31
 MURPHY ET AL.
then looked directly at comparing judgements at
each block. As these could be argued to be
planned comparisons, we corrected the alpha
level (a/number of comparisons) and used a ¼
.01 for each comparison. These individual single
degree of freedom comparisons found that the
relatively large difference shown in Figure 2 on
Block 3 was consistent with a statistically reliable
difference in ratings, F(1, 18) ¼ 13.16, p ¼ .002,
MSE ¼ 0.372, h2 ¼ .422. None of the other
block comparisons approached the critical F
value, with Blocks 2, 4, and 5, all Fs , 1, and
Block 1, F(1, 18) ¼ 2.00, p ¼ .174, MSE ¼
0.313, h2 ¼ .100. Therefore, these results are con-
sistent with Hamilton and Gifford’s (1976) orig-
inal finding of an illusory correlation effect, but
Downloaded By: [Hilton, Denis] At: 18:29 6 January 2011
only during the intermediate stages of the learning
procedure at a similar number of trials to the 39
used by Hamilton and Gifford (especially Blocks
2 and 3, corresponding to 36 and 48 exposures,
respectively).
In summary, participants reported no initial
preference for either the majority Group A or
the minority Group B, but with intermediate
training the majority group was liked significantly
more than the minority group. With extended
training, however, this difference in turn disap-
peared. It is worth noting from consideration of
Figure 2 that the ratings of the minority group at
the end of training were similar to the ratings of
the majority group at about half the amount of
exposure. This is suggestive that the lower liking
of the minority group relative to the majority
group early on in training represents preasymptotic
learning. While the exact number of trials required
to show the effect will always depend upon the sal-
ience of the stimuli used during learning, it is
striking that the production of the IC effect in
our experiment peaks at Blocks 2 (36 trials) and
3 (48 trials), exactly the range of exposures (36 –
48) used in all the studies of the IC effect reviewed
by Mullen and Johnson (1990). This limited range
of exposures appears to have become standard in
illusory correlation research inspired by the
Hamilton and Gifford paradigm and continues
to be used by later researchers (e.g., Sherman
et al., 2009).
32 THE QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF EXPERIMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY, 2010, 64 (1)
In addition to the liking ratings, which reflect
the participants’ attitudes to the two groups, we
also gathered data that were meant to reflect par-
ticipants’ memory for the frequency of events. It
is possible, but unlikely, that participants saw so
many sentences that by the end of our longer train-
ing procedure they could not distinguish between
the two groups, although why more exposure
should produce weaker memories is unclear.
When asked at the end of the experiment to
provide frequency estimations of the number of
statements for each type of group, participants
recalled the group ratio accurately. They had no
trouble reporting that twice as many sentences
were presented referring to the majority group.
The mean estimated number of positive statements
experienced for the majority and minority groups
were M ¼ 28.75 (SE ¼ 2.78) and M ¼ 15.75
(SE ¼ 1.12), respectively, where the actual
numbers were 40 and 20. Because the variances
were not homogeneous, we used the nonparametric
Wilcoxon Signed Ranks test to analyse these data
and found a reliable difference in frequency esti-
mates, Z ¼ – 3.41, p , .001. Therefore, at the
end of training, participants accurately reported
that they had received approximately twice as
many positive statements about the majority
group than about the minority group, although
we note that this may represent a slight underesti-
mation of the actual number of statements.
EXPERIMENT 2
To test the generality of these new findings, in a
second experiment we tested a prediction that
the illusory correlation effect of minority group
stereotypes will dissipate with extended training
for two novel situations in which we varied the
ratio of the behavioural statements or the ratio of
the groups or the proportions.
We chose one of the new conditions specifically
to explore an interesting prediction of the associat-
ive model that absolute judgements of likeability
of the two groups are related to the ratio of positive
statements to negative statements. In Experiment 1,
67% of statements were positive; increasing this

proportion should correspondingly increase the
final likeability of both groups (see Figure 1,
middle panel). So in one group the proportion of
positive to negative statements was increased to
5:1 (84%, 16%). From the perspective of the distinc-
tiveness theory this manipulation might be expected
to enhance the IC effect, since the negative minority
behaviours are even more distinctive. Alternatively,
fewer of these negative statements might lead to
them being more easily forgotten and therefore
enhancing the size of the effect if it was based on
memory loss. However, from an associative perspec-
tive the size of the illusory correlation effect shown
by the relative difference in strength of associations
for the two groups shown in middle panel of Figure
1 is unchanged, since there are still twice as many
Downloaded By: [Hilton, Denis] At: 18:29 6 January 2011
statements about the majority group. The effect
should first be acquired and then dissipate.
In the second new group the majority to min-
ority ratio was increased to 5:1 (84%, 16%). This
group might be expected to produce a stronger
illusory correlation effect or at least one that took
longer to overcome with training. The model
suggests that since they would receive even more
relative experience with the majority group, it
would take longer to learn about the minority
group (See Figure 1, right panel). Both distinctive-
ness and memory loss theories should predict a
strengthening of the illusory correlation effect
regardless of the number of trials, since again the
minority group is presented even less frequently
than in the original design. A final group involved
the 2:1 group that we used in Experiment 1 as a
control.
Method
Participants and materials
A total of 92 university undergraduates took part
in this experiment, each given 3 GBP. Two
changes were made to the experimental materials.
Groups were labelled with colours rather than the
letters A and B used in Experiment 1, and the
Likert scale was extended. We used an 11-point
likeability rating scale in attempt to provide a
larger range for participants to express their judge-
ments to better capture the effect.
THE QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF EXPERIMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY, 2010, 64 (1)
ILLUSORY CORRELATION
Procedure
The procedure was similar to that in Experiment 1,
except the participants received one of three differ-
ent sets of statements. The control condition (2:1
positive) received the same treatment as that in
Experiment 1, 90 statements with a 2:1 ratio of
majority to minority (i.e., 60:30) statements. The
two new experimental groups received either a
change in the ratio of majority to minority group
statements (5:1 majority condition) or a change
in the ratio of positive to negative statements
(5:1 positive condition). As the label implies, par-
ticipants in the group 5:1 majority condition
received five times as many statements for the
majority than for the minority group (75 describ-
ing majority members and 15 describing minority
members). The ratio of positive to negative state-
ments for this group was the same as that in the
control group (2:1). Participants in group 5:1 posi-
tive received five times as many positive as negative
(75:15) statements. The ratio of majority to min-
ority statements was the same as that in the
control group. These two new conditions can
therefore be considered as involving either a treat-
ment with a large majority or a treatment involving
more well-behaved individuals. Group labels were
blue and red or orange and purple; within each pair
the use of a colour to describe the majority group
was counterbalanced. We pilot tested using
colour labels instead of letter labels as used in the
original Hamilton and Gifford (1976) design and
found that these produced the same pattern of
effects as that in Experiment 1. We did not ask
the participants for baseline ratings in this exper-
iment given that these did not elicit differential
ratings in our previous work, and we thought it
was worth testing whether the effect would still
dissipate if there was no chance to anchor judge-
ments at the outset of the experiment.
Results and discussion
As in Experiment 1, initially there was no discrimi-
nation between the majority and minority groups
in each condition. At an intermediate level of train-
ing a difference emerged, and by the end of training
no preference for either group was found. The
33
 MURPHY ET AL.
mean liking ratings for the majority and minority
groups across five blocks are shown separately for
the three different frequency manipulations in
Figure 3. The learning effect does not seem as
pronounced, but it is important to remember that
this is partially because there are no baseline data,
so that Block 1 already reflects some learning.
We replicate the development and then diminution
of the illusory correlation effect in all three groups.
Additionally, there was only moderate statistical
support for any reliable difference in the relative
size of the majority group preference between the
three conditions. However, there was strong
evidence supporting the associative prediction
that judgements of likeability would be higher
(both groups rated as more likeable) by the end of
Downloaded By: [Hilton, Denis] At: 18:29 6 January 2011
training when the ratio of positive to negative
statements was 5:1 than in the 2:1 condition, the
more well-behaved condition.
An ANOVA was carried out including the four
factors statement ratio (2:1 positive, 5:1 positive, 5:1
majority), group (majority or minority), majority
label (blue/red, orange/purple), and block (1–5).
Only two effects were statistically reliable: the inter-
action between group and block, F(4, 320) ¼ 4.01,
p ¼ .003, MSE ¼ 2.37, h2 ¼ .045, and the main
effect of statement ratio, F(2, 86) ¼ 19.94, p ¼
.001, MSE ¼ 8.85, h2 ¼ .317. The interaction is
consistent with the observation that the difference
between the majority and minority ratings was not
the same after each block of presentations.
However, the three-way interaction between state-
ment ratio, group, and block that might have
reflected different levels of illusory correlation in
the three conditions was not reliable (F , 1).
Although the 5:1 majority group looks like it may
have produced a larger illusory correlation, as was
predicted by the RWM, the statistical evidence
did not support this prediction. We tested the size
of the difference between majority and minority
group liking ratings after each block and only
found a statistically reliable difference between the
minority and majority group ratings preasymptoti-
cally, in this case after the second block of trials,
F(1, 86) ¼ 12.56, p ¼ .001, MSE ¼ 3.35, h2 ¼
.127. This could be taken as evidence that the illu-
sory correlation effect was of a similar strength in all
34 THE QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF EXPERIMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY, 2010, 64 (1)
three conditions on the second block of trials. The
main effect of statement ratio also was reliable,
F(2, 86) ¼ 10.35, p ¼ .001, MSE ¼ 3.61, h2 ¼
.194, but there was no interaction between block
and statement ratio. The ratio main effect suggests
that the absolute value of the judgements differed in
the three groups; it was predicted by the RWM that
the 5:1 positive ratio group should have elicited
higher judgements than either other treatment.
The statistical analysis confirmed this prediction,
and the observation from Figure 3 demonstrates
that this was the case. The 5:1 high positive con-
dition elicited higher judgements than both the
5:1 high majority and the 2:1 control condition
using the Bonferroni correction (the mean differ-
ences were 1.30 and 1.35, p , .001, for both com-
parisons, respectively). There was no difference in
absolute judgements between the high majority
and the control condition.
These results confirm the predictions generated
by an associative learning model for the emergence
and elimination of the illusory correlation effect.
We have shown with this experiment that the
acquisition process posited by associative learning
models is common to other trial sets. We also
found some evidence that this effect is sensitive to
the relative ratio of positive to negative statements,
although the prediction for a stronger effect with
the 5:1 majority was not confirmed. This failure
may reflect the failure of the theory or the sensitivity
of our measures to find a significant effect.
GENERAL DISCUSSION
Our results show that the emergence of an illusory
correlation effect depends on the amount of
experience that the learner has of the (non)covar-
iation of the target social groups with the frequent
and infrequent behaviours in question. Thus while
we reproduced the illusory correlation effect using
the experimental paradigm of Hamilton and
Gifford (1976), the (illusory) perception of a cor-
relation between the minority group and an
infrequent behaviour peaked on the third trial
block (54 observations) in Experiment 1 and the
second block (36 observations) in Experiment 2
 ILLUSORY CORRELATION
Downloaded By: [Hilton, Denis] At: 18:29 6 January 2011

Figure 3. Mean liking ratings for majority and minority groups in the standard 2:1 positive condition, with a ratio of 2:1 for both majority to
minority and positive to negative statements (left panel), the 5:1 positive condition with a ratio of 5:1 positive to negative behavioural
statements (middle panel), and the 5:1 majority condition with a ratio of 5:1 majority to minority group members (right panel) in
Experiment 2. Average ratings from two blocks (18 trials).

and in both cases declined to be become extin-
guished at the fifth trial block (90 observations).
Our results are thus quite consistent with the
meta-analysis of Mullen and Johnson (1990),
which reviewed 24 experiments that all used
between 36 and 48 observations, which correspond
approximately to our second and third learning
blocks. However, the emergence of a clear learning
curve qualifies Mullen and Johnson’s (1990, p. 21)
assertion that “the basic illusory correlation effect
is stronger under . . . larger numbers of exemplars
in the stimulus array”. While Mullen and
Johnson’s assertion is correct for the earlier part
of the learning curve (Blocks 1 to 3), it is mani-
festly incorrect for the later part of the learning
curve (Blocks 4 to 5). Our theoretical analysis
and results therefore set boundary conditions for
the emergence (and disappearance) of the illusory
correlation effect in Hamilton and Gifford’s exper-
imental paradigm, where people have to learn
relationships between groups and behaviours that
vary along a single dimension of positivity and
negativity. They also raise the question as to
whether similar learning curve effects will emerge
in related experimental paradigms in which illu-
sory correlation has been observed, such as that
used by Sherman et al. (2009) where people are
asked to learn the relationships between majority
and minority groups and two independent dimen-
sions that vary in positivity and negativity, such as
friendliness and intelligence.
By using predictions derived from a formal
associative learning model we were able to test
the prediction that the effect is a preasymptotic
learning effect that is not simply dependent upon
the distinctiveness of the minority group state-
ments or memory loss. The results suggest that
this is indeed the case, with a significant illusory
correlation effect favouring the majority group
only occurring after an intermediate number of
stimulus presentations. In Experiment 1, using
the Hamilton and Gifford (1976) procedure, we
obtained an illusory correlation effect with inter-
mediate exposure. The actual amount of exposure

THE QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF EXPERIMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY, 2010, 64 (1) 35

 MURPHY ET AL.
required to produce the effect is not simply deter-
mined by the number of trials, but obviously by
individual differences and salience of sentences,
and hence no unqualified conclusion should be
derived about the ideal number of trials required
to elicit the effect. As in other domains of learning
this is an empirical question, which depends sig-
nificantly on the exact experimental procedure
used. What learning theory does provide is the
generalized learning curve.
Finally, an equally important but often over-
looked aspect of the data is that comparison of
responding on the final block of training with
the baseline ratings suggested quite clearly that
judgements became more positive as a direct
result of experience. In Experiment 2 we also
Downloaded By: [Hilton, Denis] At: 18:29 6 January 2011
showed that the RWM model can be used to gen-
erate specific and novel predictions about the con-
ditions under which the absolute level of likeability
can be manipulated by varying the relative pro-
portion of positive to negative statements.
Taken together these findings illustrate the
value in applying a general learning model to our
understanding of the processes underlying
human learning of negative beliefs about and atti-
tudes to minority groups. They pose a challenge
to Hamilton and Sherman’s explanation
(McConnell, Sherman, & Hamilton, 1994) in
terms of “ultimate distinctiveness”, since it
remains unspecified how this should vary as a
function of amount of exposure. Models of a
more formal nature have been developed to
account for the illusory correlation phenomenon
(e.g., Fiedler, 1991, 2000b; Smith, 1991).
However, none of the existing social cognition
models of illusory correlation have looked at learn-
ing curves and the development and disappearance
of the group difference in the illusory correlation
paradigm, and still less have they examined the
effect of increased learning on the illusory corre-
lation effect. The disappearance of the group
difference is a research question that has been
neither explored nor modelled in detail, and
which clearly merits further investigation.
Furthermore, our data provide explicit and robust
disconfirmation of models that predict continuing
perception of illusory correlation with increased
36 THE QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF EXPERIMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY, 2010, 64 (1)
exposure, such as Smith’s (1991) memory-trace
model and Fiedler’s (1991) information loss
account.
Advantages of the associative learning
approach
A primary advantage of a formal associative learn-
ing approach like the RWM is that it can already
account for a wide range of phenomena other
than illusory correlation. We hope to have shown
how the generally accepted associative learning
model can (a) account for the illusory correlation
effect in social cognition and (b) make original
predictions about the development and extinction
of this effect. In particular, we note that associative
models have already had success in explaining
human learning on a range of other tasks including
correlation learning, blocking, and outcome
density effects (e.g., Baker et al., 1996), and in
using them to explain illusory correlation effects
in social stimuli, we are adding explanatory range
to a theory that is already parsimonious and
powerful. Second, the associative learning
approach has prima facie psychological plausibility
as applied to illusory correlation: Two factors that
have been identified as central to the learning of
illusory correlations by other models, such as dis-
tinctiveness (Hamilton, 1981) and frequency
(Fiedler, 1991; Smith, 1991), are already incorpor-
ated in existing learning models (e.g., Rescorla &
Wagner, 1972). Third, and most important for
the experiments described here, existing associat-
ive learning models can readily predict the illusory
correlation effect and naturally generate unique
and novel testable predictions about the develop-
mental nature of the phenomenon.
Hamilton and Gifford (1976) offered the
concept of distinctiveness by infrequency as an
account of the illusory correlation effect they
observed—that is, infrequent events are con-
sidered more memorable and hence become more
available when participants recall the covariation
information. However, other work indicates a
more complex picture in which distinctiveness is
used to describe salient features possessed by indi-
vidual stimuli rather than within-category stimuli

infrequencies. In these studies expectations of
associations between paired stimuli (e.g.,
Chapman, 1967; Hamilton & Rose, 1980), the
negative valence of stimuli (Mullen & Johnson,
1990), and own-attitude congruence with some
of the stimuli presented (Spears, van der Pligt, &
Eiser, 1986) have all enhanced illusory corre-
lations. In the simplest case, when distinctiveness
is defined purely as the relative within-category
infrequency of a particular stimulus, associative
models (e.g., RWM) do predict preasymptotic for-
mation of the typical illusory correlation effect.
Information loss models (e.g., Fiedler, 1996,
2000a) can make the prediction of the elimination
of the illusory correlation effect by recruiting a
number of auxiliary assumptions (e.g., concerning
Downloaded By: [Hilton, Denis] At: 18:29 6 January 2011
stimulus salience; Fiedler, 2000b). However, these
predictions do not emerge from the information
loss account itself, but from the addition of
additional parameters to the model. It is also
important to note that the RWM already incor-
porates weighting parameters that represent
stimulus salience. Thus when distinctiveness is
defined as a stimulus feature, predictions about
speed of learning depend on the link between the
learning-rate parameters a and b, which capture
the salience or associability of the group labels
and statement’s affective value, respectively. The
RWM predicts that learning will be enhanced
when more salient stimuli are paired with a
group (e.g., Kanouse & Hanson, 1972).
However, determining stimulus salience for any
given stimuli set requires a psychophysical study of
stimulus salience and is likely to depend on the
specific qualities of the stimuli involved and the
particular experimental situation. At the moment
no such study has been conducted. However,
recent work has suggested that other factors are
also likely to influence learning. For example, pre-
vious predictiveness of a stimulus may facilitate
learning. LePelley et al. (2010) have shown that
originally neutral stimuli that are predictive of
unrelated neutral events endow these stimuli
with increased associability consistent with some
associative accounts. Any experience that increases
attention or prior knowledge about a cue would be
expected to influence these effects. On the other
THE QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF EXPERIMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY, 2010, 64 (1)
ILLUSORY CORRELATION
hand we have assumed that the strength of the
association between our fictitious group labels
and valence of behaviour is predicted to be zero
on the first trial. But depending upon the nature
of any prior knowledge it may take longer or less
time to learn to asymptote.
Our overall conclusion is that these data
provide new empirical evidence for the associative
learning interpretation of the illusory correlation
effect first suggested by Slugoski, Sarson, and
Krank (1991). However, we do not claim that
associative learning models can explain all findings
that have been reported in connection with the
illusory correlation effect or that the effect is
only determined by such a process (e.g., Sherman
et al., 2009). The illusory correlation effect
clearly is a multiply determined phenomenon
that occurs at both the encoding and the judge-
ment stage. For instance, associative models are
not applicable in cases where there is no sequential
learning—that is, where participants are only given
summary information about groups (e.g.,
McGarty, Haslam, Turner, & Oakes, 1993).
Practical implications for stereotype
formation and elimination
We conclude by considering the implications of
our results for real-world stereotyping phenomena
in intergroup relations, and in particular for the
contact hypothesis for reducing negative stereo-
typing of outgroups. Our data suggest that nega-
tive minority stereotypes are not an inevitable
final product of general learning processes. They
also help resolve an apparent contradiction
between the illusory correlation literature and
work on the intergroup contact hypothesis
(Allport, 1954; Watson, 1947). This contradiction
exists because current models of IC (Fiedler, 1991;
Smith, 1991) predict that proportionately
increased exposure to both majority and minority
groups should a priori lead to increased prejudice,
not to reduced prejudice. In contrast, the contact
hypothesis predicts that increased contact
between groups should lead to less prejudice
(e.g., Brewer & Miller, 1984; Gaertner, Mann,
Murrell, & Dovidio, 1989; Hewstone & Brown,
37
 MURPHY ET AL.
1986; Pettigrew, 1998; see Brown & Hewstone,
2005, for a review), and recent meta-analyses
have found support for this hypothesis (e.g.,
Pettigrew & Tropp, 2005, 2008).
Allport (1954) suggested that contact would be
beneficial if it occurred in a situation of equal
status, involved cooperative interaction in the
pursuit of common goals, allowed the formation
of close relationships with outgroup members,
and was institutionally supported. The associative
learning approach represented by the RWM
would add an important qualifier to these con-
ditions: Contact as such will only be beneficial if
it is prolonged and/or allows the individual to
learn to asymptote the proportion of positive to
negative attributes in both groups (and if these
Downloaded By: [Hilton, Denis] At: 18:29 6 January 2011
proportions are indeed identical for both groups).
Provided that there are no biased expectancies
about both groups at the outset, little or no
contact can be more beneficial than a medium
amount of contact, which would promote the per-
ception of an illusory correlation effect. In light of
the effects of incomplete learning about groups
reported in this paper, this is an interesting predic-
tion that warrants further testing.
Original manuscript received 06 June 2009
Accepted revision received 28 April 2010
First published online 8 July 2010
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