Overgeneralization
Jump to navigation
Jump to search
The printable version is no longer supported and may have rendering errors. Please update your browser bookmarks and please use the default browser print function instead.
About
Overgeneralization is a logical fallacy in which a selected subset of examples are taken to be representative of the whole, without examining all of the available evidence or using due diligence to collect a reasonably large sample.
Forms of overgeneralization include:
- hypernormalization: If something doesn't fit the overgeneralized definition of a category, then that thing doesn't belong in the category.
- "Everyone I know..." logic:
- These people do a thing, therefore everyone does it. (Or: These people don't do a thing, therefore nobody does it.)
- All the examples I know of fit into these two categories, therefore there are exactly two categories and no other options.
- argument by label: These examples belong in a particular category, which also has other attributes. Those attributes therefore also apply to this category.