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Jumping to Conclusions: When People Decide Based on Insufficient Information
Jumping into Conclusions
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IDEA EXTRACTED FROM:
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Key Ideas
Jumping into Conclusions
Jumping into Conclusions: Examples
- Inference-observation confusion: An assumption made that may or may not be correct. Example: Concluding that a guy is rich, based on the car he drives.
- Fortune-Telling: Assumption of knowing exactly what will happen in the future.
- Mind Reading: Assuming based on how to have read someone's mind and concluded something which may not be true.
- Extreme Extrapolation: Finding a minor clue and making something major out of it.
- Overgeneralization: Copy-pasting a piece of knowledge over something that you think is related, but is not.
- Labeling: Stereotyping a set of people based on their likes and dislikes.
Why We Jump to Conclusions
The reason people jump to conclusions is the fact that they find it easy.
Fact-checking and 100 percent accuracy on everything they see or observe consume way too much time for a normal person.
Taking mental shortcuts is the path most people choose to jump to conclusions.
Our Cognitive Bias
People can be biased in many ways and jump into intuitive judgments that may not necessarily be correct. When we need to make a decision quickly, sometimes jumping into a conclusion with insufficient facts maybe the right way to go. Jumping into conclusions becomes problematic when it gets sub-optimal and leads to wrong decisions.
This is observed in the medical field(Premature Closure) and in cases of paranormal belief or witchcraft.
The Common Factors
Certain factors increase the chances of people jumping into conclusions:
- A certain pre-existing belief, which leads to confirmation bias.
- A desire for closure or certainty in the future course of events.
Mental Disorders
But also a big part of the people who believe conspiracy theories (which may or may not be true) falls into this category.
A Logical Fallacy
While jumping to conclusions is viewed as a cognitive phenomenon, and is unintentional, it can also be a logical fallacy.
This means that the jumping-to-conclusions bias causes people to jump to conclusions when it comes to their internal reasoning process, which in turn causes them to use the jumping-to-conclusions fallacy in their arguments.
How to Avoid Jumping to Conclusions
- Question the validity of the information.
- Collect maximum information before reaching any hypothesis.
- Come up with multiple hypotheses.
- Don't favor a certain outcome.
- Find potential flaws in your own reasoning and question your facts.
- Recheck the premise and the first principles.
- Use a debiasing technique, visualizing the situation from other people's perspectives.
SIMILAR ARTICLES & IDEAS:
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Key Ideas
The argument from incredulity
Is a logical fallacy where someone concludes that since they can’t believe that a certain concept is true, then it must be false and vice versa.
Its 2 basic forms:
“I c...
Basic structure of an argument from incredulity
Premise 1: I can’t explain or imagine how proposition X can be true.
Premise 2: if a certain proposition is true, then I must be able to explain or imagine how that can be.
Conclusions: proposition X is false.
It’s ok to be incredulous
... and to bring this up as part of an argument. The issue with doing so occurs when this incredulity isn’t justified or supported by concrete information, and when this lack of belief is used in order to assume that a preferred personal explanation must be the right one, despite the lack of proof.
At the same time, it’s also important to remember that it’s possible that the person using the argument from incredulity is right, despite the fact that their reasoning is flawed.
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Key Ideas
Cherry picking
It is a logical fallacy and it happens when we choose and focus only on evidence that supports our views and arguments while ignoring anything that may contradict us.
The problem with cherry picking
- It fails to take into consideration all the available information
- It presents information in a misleading way.
- It might lead to improper analysis and might cause someone to paint a misleading picture of a certain outcome.
The principle of total evidence
Also referred to as Bernoulli’s maxim, it states that, when assessing the probability that a certain hypothesis is true, we must take into account all the available information.
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False equivalence
It is a logical fallacy and it occurs when someone incorrectly asserts that two or more things are equal because they share some characteristics, regardless of the notable differences...
The problem with false equivalence
- The equivalence exaggerates the degree of similarity. I.e, stating that two people share a specific personality trait, but ignoring that they differ in other aspects of this trait.
- The equivalence exaggerates the importance of the similarity. I.e, focusing on a personality trait that two people share while ignoring that many other people also share this trait.
- The equivalence ignores important differences.
- The equivalence ignores differences in orders of magnitude.
Responding to a false equivalence
- Show that the similarities between the things being equated are exaggerated, overemphasized, or oversimplified.
- Highlight the differences between the things being equated.
- Explain why these differences are more significant than related similarities.
- Provide counterexamples.
- Ask your opponent to justify why they believe that their equivalence is valid, and then demonstrate the issues with the reasoning they provide.
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