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Joaquín García

The opposite of representativeness bias.

With the representativeness bias we think that a couple of examples are representative of the whole, what would be the name of the bias or the fallacy when it is thought that the whole faithfully represents each one of the individuals?

asked on Wednesday, May 18, 2022 10:59:48 PM by Joaquín García

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Kaiden writes:

The representativeness bias is not the same thing as the fallacy of composition. So, the converse of the representativeness bias could not be the same thing as the fallacy of division. 

The representative bias involves making judgments based on an example that you regard as representative. For example, in my childhood I never really witnessed cats and dogs interact much, but I did watch the tv show Tom and Jerry. Spike the dog beat up Tom at every opportunity and Tom was terrified of him. I figured that the relationship between Tom and Spike was representative of the relationship between cats and dogs. Eventually my family got a cat and I judged it probable that if it ever came across a dog in the neighborhood, violence would break out. Actually, our cat got along wonderfully with dogs that were walked past our yard. I was biased to exaggerate the other probability because I regarded Spike and Tom’s relationship as representative.

The fallacy of composition is different than that. It involves predicting X of an object made up of parts, just because X is predicated of the parts. The representativeness bias and its converse (whatever it is), and the fallacy of composition and its converse (the fallacy of division), are separate kinds of mistakes. 

posted on Saturday, May 21, 2022 10:24:16 AM
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Ed F writes:
[To Kaiden]

Yes, good point.  I was only looking at the second half of the question.  Representative bias would lead to the fallacy of hasty generalization.

[ login to reply ] posted on Sunday, May 22, 2022 10:38:58 AM

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Ed F
3

If I understand the question— what is the fallacy of assuming that something is true of the parts based on what’s true of the whole—that would be fallacy of division    If you’re asking about concluding something about the whole based on what’s true of the parts — as Shawn indicated, that would be fallacy of composition
answered on Thursday, May 19, 2022 01:11:13 AM by Ed F

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Joaquín García writes:

Fallacy of division is what I was looking for. Thanks

 

 

 

 

 

posted on Thursday, May 19, 2022 05:54:00 PM
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Shawn
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This is an example of fallacy of composition, which is an informal fallacy that arises when one infers that something is true of the whole from the fact that it is true of some part of the whole. An example might be: "This tire is made of rubber, therefore the vehicle of which it is a part is also made of rubber."  

It is also fallacy of hasty generalization, in which an unwarranted inference is made from a statement about a sample to a statement about the population from which it is drawn.
answered on Wednesday, May 18, 2022 11:09:12 PM by Shawn

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