Don't Be So Hasty! The Danger of Generalization

WHAT IS A "HASTY GENERALIZATION"?

There is a logical fallacy commonly referred to as “hasty generalization.” It occurs when someone takes a limited set of experiences and relies on them to persuade someone of a conclusion.

A way to identify a hasty generalization is with reference to a purported common experience or using phrases such as “everyone knows” or “it goes without saying”.

There is often a temptation by a decision maker to rely on a hasty generalization because it creates a “simple solution” to what may otherwise be a complicated situation. 

It is important, when advocating, to make sure that you do not attempt to persuade using hasty generalizations because when your audience realizes that you are relying on a hasty generalization it significantly weakens your argument. Similarly, when you are presented with a hasty generalization it is important to recognize it and identify your concerns.

When advocating you must be aware that your argument may be perceived as a hasty generalization despite it being based on sufficient information. This can occur when you rely too strongly on a single example or are concerned that providing too much information will overwhelm or bore your audience. It is important, when you are relying on a selection of the available information, to make sure your audience is aware that there is additional information that you can provide if it would be useful.

Related to the problem of advocating for a conclusion based on limited information is advocating for something based on a more significant collection of information when all that information contains the same bias. This problem, generally, is more difficult to detect than an inadequate amount of information. However, if you are thoughtful about a collection of information there is an opportunity to identify bias.

Despite this fallacy appearing to be easy to detect and avoid, we have commonly encountered it.

A very common example is regarding noise complaints.

When an owner complains that they are disturbed by an unreasonable amount of noise coming from the strata unit above them it is not unusual for the Strata to enquire if there is hard surface flooring. If there is, then the Strata decides that the noise must be unreasonable. This is not a valid decision because it is a hasty generalization. There are several ways that the risk of noise can be mitigated – area rugs, wearing slippers, walking softly – a decision that is based on a single piece of information, that there is hard surface flooring, is a hasty generalization that is a logical fallacy.

A similar situation is when the investigation of a noise complaint is reduced to a “measurement of the intensity of the noise.” The intensity of a noise is a single information point and does not establish whether there is an unreasonable amount of noise. Even a series of measurements would still result in a hasty generalization because it is all biased by the fact that it is simply a measurement of the intensity of noise from a single source and does not address other noises or the context in which the noise occurs.

SIMPLE SOLUTIONS ARE NOT USUALLY PERSUASIVE

A decision maker may be tempted to decide based on a hasty generalization because it provides a “simple solution” to what may otherwise be a complicated situation. However, despite the apparent usefulness of this technique, advocates need to avoid it because when an argument is identified as a hasty generalization it is very likely to not be persuasive.

It is important to not rely too strongly on a single example because it may imply that an argument based on sufficient and unbiased information is a hasty generalization.