Tom Ralston at Aeon:
Overgeneralising has a bad rap. It seems an obvious, if understandable, mistake to generalise beyond what our evidence supports. A child playing in the park may assume, based on their experiences of their friendly pet golden retriever, that all dogs are friendly. But they would be wrong to approach an XL Bully, a breed of dog effectively outlawed in the UK recently following a string of attacks on children. When someone makes unwarranted generalisations about social groups, we condemn them for the sin of stereotyping. It is wrong to conclude after just one experience with a rude Brit that all Brits are rude.
We hear less about the problems of undergeneralising. Generalising comes so naturally that few of us are at any risk of undergeneralising, so we give it little thought. The focus on overgeneralising is understandable given its potential costs, such as the child assuming that a dangerous dog is just like the friendly dogs they’ve encountered to date. Generalising itself, though, isn’t a bias that needs to be corrected. It is a cognitive shortcut and a fundamental part of our mental life. We’d be lost without it.
More here.
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