Anecdotal Fallacy
We use personal experience or isolated examples to draw sweeping conclusions.
The anecdotal fallacy occurs when someone uses a single personal story or isolated example as evidence for a general claim, rather than rigorous statistical data. Personal experiences are vivid and compelling but statistically unrepresentative. This fallacy is pervasive in debates about policy, medicine, and social issues where dramatic individual stories outweigh comprehensive studies.
What it looks like in the wild.
- Politics Welfare Anecdote A politician argues against welfare programs by citing one recipient who allegedly abused the system, ignoring systematic research showing the program's net benefits for millions.
Recognising a definition is not the same skill as spotting it.
Two scenarios from the app, with distractors drawn from the same family of biases — which is what makes them hard.
After his brother's startup failed, Jake decided that all tech startups are doomed to fail and avoids investing in them.
David heard about one student who dropped out of college and became a billionaire, so he argues that a college degree is useless.
Biases rarely arrive alone.
Understand more. Assume less.
188 biases, 18,869 scenarios, and a record of how you actually decide.
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