John found that freshman girls at a local high school were more likely than freshman boys to get detention.In his article,he concludes that overall high school girls are more likely than boys to get in trouble.This is an example of ______.

Question

Quizplus · Accepted Answer

The conclusion drawn by John is an example of ecological fallacy, which is the assumption that group-level relationships also hold at the individual level. Just because freshman girls at a specific high school were more likely to get detention than boys, it does not mean that all high school girls are more likely than boys to get in trouble. The conclusion is based on data from a specific context and cannot be easily generalized to the population.

John Found That Freshman Girls at a Local High School