Dm. Sanbonmatsu et al., SALIENCE, SET SIZE, AND ILLUSORY CORRELATION - MAKING MODERATE ASSUMPTIONS ABOUT EXTREME TARGETS, Journal of personality and social psychology, 66(6), 1994, pp. 1020-1033
Salient persons and objects are often evaluated more extremely than ot
her targets. Our study integrated research on illusory correlation, se
t size, and salience and explored when and why these salience effects
occur. The results indicate that the tendency to evaluate salient targ
ets more extremely is attenuated when the number of targets present in
the judgmental context is low or when considerable time is available
to process the relevant evidence. These illusory correlations are also
less likely to form when the descriptions of the targets are moderate
as opposed to extreme. The findings reveal that people tend to learn
much about salient targets, but they are often left to making assumpti
ons about nonsalient targets. An illusory correlation often forms beca
use the salient target is recognized to have extreme qualities, wherea
s nonsalient targets are erroneously assumed to have more moderate qua
lities.