Ecological fallacy

An ecological fallacy (also ecological inference fallacy or population fallacy) is a formal fallacy in the interpretation of statistical data that occurs when inferences about the nature of individuals are deduced from inferences about the group to which those individuals belong. From the conceptual standpoint of mereology, four common ecological fallacies are:

• Correlation/relation: confusion regarding relations belonging to parts versus relations belonging to wholes,

• Characteristics: confusion between characteristics of parts and characteristics of a whole,

• Extrapolation/extension: confusion from false inference of part-whole dynamics: assuming the behavior of partially unknown and/or future wholes from information which is relatively partial,

• Confusion between qualities not bound to individual parts, for example "atmospheres", "moods" and "vibes", versus properties, hæccities or identities of indivisible units.

From a statistical point of view, these ideas can be unified by specifying proper statistical models to make formal inferences, using aggregate data to make unobserved relationships in individual level data.