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ecological fallacy

ecological fallacy The spurious inference of individual characteristics from group-level characteristics. The classic presentation is by W. S. Robinson in ‘Ecological Correlations and the Behaviour of Individuals’ (American Sociological Review, 1950)
, which demonstrates the inconsistencies between correlations at differing levels of aggregation. For example, a strong association between unemployment rates and crime-rates may be observed in data for police districts, but the statistical association will be much weaker and may not occur at all in data for particular component smaller neighbourhoods, or in survey microdata. More generally, a strong association between two factors in aggregate data cannot be taken as evidence of a causal link at the individual level. One of the most famous examples of ecological reasoning is Émile Durkheim's Suicide (see H. C. Selvin , ‘Durkheim's Suicide:Further Thoughts on a Methodological Classic’, in R. A. Nisbet ( ed.) , Émile Durkheim, 1965)
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