Survivorship Bias
Success Is The Exception Rather Than The Rule
There is a fundamental misunderstanding of cause and effect, and the difference between correlation and causation.
Survivorship Bias - Overview
Survivorship bias is a mental shortcut or heuristic that occurs when a visible successful individual [or subgroup] is mistaken as being representative of the entire group, due to the fact that all of those who failed to succeed are not visible failure and are thus disregarded.
This bias can lead to false conclusions about what it takes to be successful and an overly optimistic belief in your chances of success.
As we noted in Why Embracing Failure And Uncertainty Is The Better Option:
"Numerous studies have been undertaken on successful people to understand what it was that they did to become so successful, how they did it and when they did it - and we are led to believe that we too can achieve comparable success if we replicate this.
This focus on success is very odd given that:
Success is the exception rather than the rule
- Winners are outliers – they do not represent the common experience and they do not tell the whole story
- Winners are not the norm
- failure is the norm and winners are the exception. People like Bill
Gates are the outlier, the exception, the anomaly. Modelling yourself on
Bill Gates will not make you into a major success."
Why it happens?
The Survivorship Bias is a very common cognitive bias, which can be attributed to a fundamental misunderstanding of cause and effect, and specifically with regard to the difference between correlation versus causation.
Causation can be defined as action A causes outcome B.
Correlation is a relationship, thus action A relates to outcome B.
- Correlation and causation are often confused because the human mind likes to find patterns even when they do not exist.
- We can not assume causation just because we see an apparent connection or link between A and B, such as we see that B follows A or we see A and B simultaneously.
- We can only show a causation when we know how it causes B and why it causes B. Following on from we must be able to show how it can be replicated under the same conditions, and is supported with empirical evidence and thus complies with scientific method.
With regard to the Survivorship Bias, just because you can observe a pattern from a dataset, such as several successful entrepreneurs like Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk dropped out of school, does not mean that all successful entrepreneurs drop out of school, or that all those who drop out of school will be successful.
How To Avoid Survivorship Bias
- Don't ignore the base rate data - that is, the odds of success (or failure) based on prior probabilities. Successful people usually represent a very small subset of all those in their field.
- Dig deep in your search for true understanding of success and failure - ask yourself what you don't see.
- Talk to those at the coal-face or the front line
- the unsung people under-recognised people who are directly involved
in whatever field you aim to succeed in can tell you so much more about what's
really involved. Seek them out, be humble, ask questions, listen and
learn.
Resources:
Excellent and comprehensive article from Shane Parrish of Farnam St: Survivorship Bias: The Tale of Forgotten Failures
Another comprehensive and easy to read article from The Decision Lab: Why do we misjudge groups by only looking at specific group members?
Return from "Survivorship Bias" to: Cognitive Distortion
- What if everything we think…
LATEST ARTICLES
The Balanced Brain - The Ultimate Route To Personal Transformation
How To Experience The Benefits Of A Balanced Brain. Underpinning all of the belief systems and practices that offer routes to personal change, transformation and spiritual growth is the balanced brain…How To Make Better Decisions - By Avoiding The Narrative Trap
To Understand The Truth We Have To See The Whole Picture. One of the best ways to make better decisions is to have a deeper understanding of the many things that might stop that happening. To understa…The Greatest Love - The Most Important Relationship You Will Ever Have
Yet Most Will Never Know It Everyone of us has a place, in our hearts there's a space, that is home to the greatest love of all. This love transcends everything we think we know about the world of for…Everything Is Connected And Why You Don't Feel It
...And Why It Matters
As human beings we are skating on very thin ice with our sense of self and certainty about "how things are" and what we like to think of as reality:
Who Is In Charge Of Your Brain?
How Not To Be Stupid. Who is in charge of your brain? This is not a silly questions. It matters because the outcomes that you experience in your life are determined by how you respond to the events th…How To Be A Winner On A Very Large Scale
The Incredible Benefits Of Selective Attention. This is not a typical article about how to be a winner. We are not going to talk about goal setting, the importance of habits, the power of focus and al…The Metagame Approach To Life
How To Achieve Your Biggest Objectives.
The metagame approach to life is all about winning and achieving your biggest objectives by:
- Understanding the bigger picture
- Being better by doing things d…Shantideva - The Way Of The Bodhisattva
Walking The Path Of Compassion. Shantideva the 8th century Indian Buddhist sage is famous for his treatise "The Way of the Bodhisattva" delivered as an extended teaching to the monks of Nalanda monast…Reframing History - Deconstruction And Discussion Not Destruction
History is always about context, not imposing our own moral values on the past. For those of us fortunate enough to live within western democracies, we are living in an age where a vociferous and into…Tao Te Ching - Connecting To Your True Source Of Power.
How To Be Lived By The Tao. The Tao Te Ching is one of those books that many people read, few understand, and even fewer put into practice. The only way to know the Tao is to experience it, and it is…How Things Really Are - The Inbuilt Design Flaws
Chaos, Disorder And Decay Is The Natural Order Of Things. Nobody has the perfect life. We all struggle and strive to attain health, wealth and personal happiness. Yet these three big areas: our health…Intuition Or Anxiety - Are There Angels Or Devils Crawling Here?
How To Tell The Difference Between Intuition and Anxiety. How do you know whether the voice of your intuition is real or just the product of your inner anxiety? Several months ago I was having a drink…What Is Truth - How To Tell A Partial Truth From The Whole Truth?
How the truth and nothing but the truth is often not the whole truth. My great aunty Flo broke her arm and died. It is true that she broke her arm in 1923. It is also true that she died in 1949. But t…Duality And Life Beyond Your Thinking Mind
Duality and life beyond your thinking mind focuses on the limitations of time, foreground and background, duality and "stuckness". The first aspect of duality and life beyond your thinking mind focuse…The Conscious Mind Is Limited - Be Aware And Be Prepared
Being aware is the first stage of being prepared. The conscious mind is limited in so many ways. There are some who would argue that there is no such thing as conscious thought and that it is represen…Your Inner Map Of Reality - Here's Why You Think The Way You Do
The big picture of how your inner map of reality creates your feelings, thoughts, and behaviours. Your inner map of reality is based on the filters of your own ethnic, national, social, family and rel…The Failure Of Cancel Culture - Suppression Not Engagement
Why we need to wear our beliefs lightly and develop negative capability. Throughout history people have campaigned to fight beliefs, ideologies, and injustices that they perceived to be oppressive, di…4 Big Reasons Why We Get Stuck In Our Attempts At Personal Change
Most People Spend Their Entire Life Imprisoned Within The Confines Of Their Own Thoughts. This first of the 4 big reasons why we get stuck is, in my view, the most important. The "self-help industry…How Do I Change And Why Is It So Hard?
We Would Rather Die Than Change, And We Usually Do In my experience, the vast majority of people who say they want to change don’t change. Most people reading this won’t change because they don’t real…The Illusion Of A Separate Self - Windows 11 With Self Awareness!
Beyond the content of your mind you are so much more than you think you are. When we talk of "myself" this is the conventional way of referring to our self image which is in fact the ego's constructio…Finite And Infinite Games - Dazed, Confused & Ultimately Transcendent
This is not an instruction manual, it is a wake up call!
Over this past week I have read Professor James Carse's highly regarded "Finite And Infinite Games - A Vision Of Life As Play And Possibility"…The Gap And The Gain - How Your Brain Sabotages Your Happiness
How Your Lizard Brain Sabotages Your Happiness We are hardwired to measure our progress in any and all areas of life where we have goals and aspirations. We can't not do it. But what we measure and ho…How To Wake Up - 4 Simple Practices To Help You Wake Up Now
So What Exactly Does It Mean to Wake Up - What Is "Enlightenment"? There is nothing magical, mystical or mysterious about waking up we’re actually having glimpses of enlightenment all the time. Enligh…Situational Communication - Different Strokes For Different Folks
Situational communication is about taking account of 3 often ignored factors about the other person. You are a situational communicator when you recognise that effective communication is not an event…How To Influence Without Authority - 6 Key Tips
The secret to how to influence without authority is that you get what you really want by giving other people what they really want. We live in an interconnected world and knowing how to influence with…Change Questions To Change Your Outcomes
Asking The Right Questions Is Critical For A Successful Change. Every time we initiate a significant change - whether in our personal life or in an organisation - we will most likely over-estimate our…Group Culture - The Invisible Software That Rules Your Life
Group culture is: "How we do things round here". We like to see ourselves as free agents making our own choices and living authentically but the reality is that The Matrix has many layers and we are u…Why Getting From A to B Is Not Aways A Straight Line
In circumstances of significant change, the progress from A to B will not be in a straight line. We run our lives largely on auto-pilot. In most circumstances your experience of getting from A to B is…The Art Of Persuasion Planning For Success - Here's How To Do It!
To be successful in the art of persuasion you must ensure that certain things happen. To be successful in the art of persuasion you must establish a framework of what has to happen to get you to that…The Art Of Persuasion Advanced Communication Skills - Gaining Buyin
Create The Environment Where They Want To Buyin to Your Proposal In order to build the win-win you have to uncover what it is that the other person really wants or needs, and to do that you have to as…