Question

...
Sean

Is this misleading vivdness?

Often you will hear news stories in which negative events are clumped together in such a way as to make serious events seem much more common than they are. Here is a made-up example:

47% of students in the South report that they have been violently assaulted, bullied or teased.

Sounds like a very dire situation, but if one looks at the data:

Violent assault - 0.1%
Bullied - 4%
Teased - 43%

Does this specific fallacy has a name?

asked on Wednesday, Mar 20, 2024 01:02:20 PM by Sean

Top Categories Suggested by Community

Comments

Want to get notified of all questions as they are asked? Update your mail preferences and turn on "Instant Notification."

Like the Site? You'll Love the Book!

This book is a crash course, meant to catapult you into a world where you start to see things how they really are, not how you think they are.  The focus of this book is on logical fallacies, which loosely defined, are simply errors in reasoning.  With the reading of each page, you can make significant improvements in the way you reason and make decisions.

Get 20% off this book and all Bo's books*. Use the promotion code: websiteusers

* This is for the author's bookstore only. Applies to autographed hardcover, audiobook, and ebook.

Get the Book

Answers

...
Mr. Wednesday
2

I don't think that misleading vividness is the best description. While that fallacy and the example both use a small sample of data to overstate a problem, there other fallacies that do that as well.

I would mostly say this is lying with statistics with false equivalence between teasing and assault thrown in.

answered on Wednesday, Mar 20, 2024 03:50:53 PM by Mr. Wednesday

Mr. Wednesday Suggested These Categories

Comments

...
AI Fallacy Master
0
Yes, this is a form of misleading vividness fallacy or anecdotal fallacy. Also, it includes false equivalence—equating teasing and violent assault as comparable experiences. Additionally, it could be considered a form of "Lying with Statistics" by grouping together different events under one umbrella statistic without acknowledging their individual rates or impact.
answered on Wednesday, Mar 20, 2024 01:02:29 PM by AI Fallacy Master

AI Fallacy Master Suggested These Categories

Comments

...
0
Citizen Irrelevant writes:

When the legacy media performs this, which is daily btw, the misleading information is often known as “half-truths”.  Utilizing this sleight-of-hand they are always busy managing perceptions.  But, dear AI,  cuo bono?  

posted on Thursday, Mar 28, 2024 04:17:18 PM