An ecological study finds that countries with higher average chocolate consumption win more Nobel Prizes per capita. A newspaper concludes that eating chocolate makes individuals more likely to win a Nobel Prize. The logical error committed here is:

• A Ecological fallacy ✓
• B Berkson's bias
• C Hawthorne effect
• D Publication bias

Explanation

The ecological fallacy is the error of applying group-level associations to individuals. Correlation observed across populations cannot be assumed to hold at the individual level, because confounders such as national research funding may explain the group-level association. Berkson's bias arises from hospital-based sampling, the Hawthorne effect describes behaviour change under observation, and publication bias concerns selective reporting of studies, none of which describe this inferential error.

Reference: Park's Textbook of Preventive and Social Medicine, 27th ed.

High-yield for: NEET PGINI-CETNExTFMGEUSMLEPLABMRCP

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