A study showed a strong correlation between not smoking and having a high college grade point average. Although some people used this study as evidence that smoking is bad, if you accept that smoking does NOT cause someone to lose brain cells or study less, you would probably conclude that the study:

In that case, you added a spurious correlation to the study.

Explanation:

A spurious correlation occurs when a study presents a relationship between two variables without any theoretical meaning, that is, without causal relationships between the two variables. It is possible to see a case of spurious correlation in the question above. This is because, after the study reported a causal relationship between smoking and having high grades in college, one individual determined that these two variables have no causality, that is, they have no theoretical meaning.

it is due to the halo effect as the impression of the boy created earlier.on the mind of the principle affected his decision