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Con­junc­tion Fallacy

TagLast edit: Oct 3, 2020, 12:21 AM by Swimmer963 (Miranda Dixon-Luinenburg)

The conjunction fallacy consists in assuming that specific conditions are more probable than more general ones.

For the reasons related to representativeness heuristic, a fleshed-out story that contains typical amount of detail sounds more plausible than a stripped-down description of a situation that only states a few facts. There is a tendency for people to take that plausibility at face value, and assign probability accordingly. This intuition is wrong, because the conjunction rule of probability theory states that, for any event X, its conjunction with additional details Y will be less probable.

The conjunction fallacy suggests that one should be very careful in adding details to any claim, as even though each such detail may make the claim so much more convincing, it also inevitably subtracts from its validity.

Blog posts

See also

Disjunc­tions, An­tipre­dic­tions, Etc.

Eliezer YudkowskyDec 9, 2008, 3:13 PM
28 points
26 comments5 min readLW link

Con­junc­tion Con­tro­versy (Or, How They Nail It Down)

Eliezer YudkowskySep 20, 2007, 2:41 AM
60 points
25 comments8 min readLW link

Con­junc­tion fal­lacy and prob­a­bil­is­tic risk as­sess­ment.

DmytryMar 8, 2012, 3:07 PM
26 points
10 comments2 min readLW link

[SEQ RERUN] Con­junc­tion Fallacy

MinibearRexSep 1, 2011, 2:19 AM
11 points
0 comments1 min readLW link

[Link] Us­ing the con­junc­tion fal­lacy to re­veal im­plicit associations

HonoreDBDec 6, 2011, 5:29 PM
7 points
5 comments1 min readLW link

[Question] Can So­cial Dy­nam­ics Ex­plain Con­junc­tion Fal­lacy Ex­per­i­men­tal Re­sults?

curiAug 5, 2020, 8:50 AM
8 points
8 comments1 min readLW link

Asch Con­for­mity Could Ex­plain the Con­junc­tion Fallacy

curiAug 6, 2020, 9:46 PM
7 points
1 comment5 min readLW link

The Law of Least Effort Con­tributes to the Con­junc­tion Fallacy

curiAug 9, 2020, 7:38 PM
7 points
53 comments3 min readLW link

About Less Wrong

Eliezer YudkowskyFeb 23, 2009, 11:30 PM
57 points
3 comments2 min readLW link

Bur­den­some Details

Eliezer YudkowskySep 20, 2007, 11:46 PM
253 points
45 comments4 min readLW link

Which cog­ni­tive bi­ases should we trust in?

Andy_McKenzieJun 1, 2012, 6:37 AM
29 points
42 comments3 min readLW link

Con­junc­tion Fallacy

Eliezer YudkowskySep 19, 2007, 1:54 AM
55 points
46 comments3 min readLW link

ChatGPT challenges the case for hu­man irrationality

Kevin DorstAug 22, 2023, 12:46 PM
3 points
10 comments7 min readLW link
(kevindorst.substack.com)
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