Yeah, it’s a fuzzy measure of magnitude. I was trying to quantify why a stereotype can be wrong (in addition to just bothering some people) and I think that what makes stereotypes actually incorrect is the human tendency to approximate “most” by “all.”
In Kahneman and Tversky’s prospect theory, there is evidence that people do not react to the differences between small probabilities. It’s conceivable that sometimes people treat a small minority as though it were a tiny minority, virtually non-existent. (On the other hand, there’s some evidence that people overestimate small probabilities, which makes this argument weaker. So I take it back.)
The other way stereotyping can be a mistake has to do with the conjunction fallacy. Perhaps most X’s are A, most X’s are B, and most X’s are C. It does not follow that most X’s are A and B and C. Something that is A and B and C is a “most representative” element, but most X’s are not “representative.”
This is the old platitude that “there is no typical student at our school.” It would be truer to say that the most typical students are usually rare. But people will assume that a student from that school is like that rare “typical student.” This is a form of stereotyping which is actually inaccurate. (As opposed to “offensive but accurate,” which is what many people claim stereotypes to be.)
A third type of inaccurate stereotyping is mistaking P(B|A) for P(A|B). Most criminals are men, but most men are not criminals.
These are all good points. Given that 20-30% of scientists are women, it’s misleading to say “scientists are normally men” without quantifying “normally.” And though most users of this website are americans, and men, and hetero, and college-educated, possibly it is not normal for them to be all at once (I could have picked better examples). But I don’t like the idea of people scoring less-parochial-than-thou points off of each other through trivial mistakes along these lines. Maybe that doesn’t happen.
A third type of inaccurate stereotyping is mistaking P(B|A) for P(A|B). Most criminals are men, but most men are not criminals.
The usual emphasis on this website is the close relationship between these probabilities, and its important consequences.
Yeah, it’s a fuzzy measure of magnitude. I was trying to quantify why a stereotype can be wrong (in addition to just bothering some people) and I think that what makes stereotypes actually incorrect is the human tendency to approximate “most” by “all.”
In Kahneman and Tversky’s prospect theory, there is evidence that people do not react to the differences between small probabilities. It’s conceivable that sometimes people treat a small minority as though it were a tiny minority, virtually non-existent. (On the other hand, there’s some evidence that people overestimate small probabilities, which makes this argument weaker. So I take it back.)
The other way stereotyping can be a mistake has to do with the conjunction fallacy. Perhaps most X’s are A, most X’s are B, and most X’s are C. It does not follow that most X’s are A and B and C. Something that is A and B and C is a “most representative” element, but most X’s are not “representative.”
This is the old platitude that “there is no typical student at our school.” It would be truer to say that the most typical students are usually rare. But people will assume that a student from that school is like that rare “typical student.” This is a form of stereotyping which is actually inaccurate. (As opposed to “offensive but accurate,” which is what many people claim stereotypes to be.)
A third type of inaccurate stereotyping is mistaking P(B|A) for P(A|B). Most criminals are men, but most men are not criminals.
These are all good points. Given that 20-30% of scientists are women, it’s misleading to say “scientists are normally men” without quantifying “normally.” And though most users of this website are americans, and men, and hetero, and college-educated, possibly it is not normal for them to be all at once (I could have picked better examples). But I don’t like the idea of people scoring less-parochial-than-thou points off of each other through trivial mistakes along these lines. Maybe that doesn’t happen.
The usual emphasis on this website is the close relationship between these probabilities, and its important consequences.