- Sample S, which is too small, is taken from population P.
- Conclusion C is drawn about Population P based on S.
Now, why is this relevant you ask? Prejudice, racism and sexism are present in everyday life. We all partake in them, consciously or not. For example, seeing two teenage girls talking at the bus stop, we automatically assume that they are gossiping about trivial matters due to stereotypical depictions of such. Making hasty generalizations must be avoided, thus reducing the influence of bias.
For instance, have you ever encountered this sort of ad while browsing through websites? This stay at home mom makes _________ amount of money working online with google. The conclusion made through hasty generalization would be that because one person was able to make money with google, therefore, anyone can make _________ amount of money by doing the same. /kiara
This method of advertisement is used copiously on television as well. You will often see a segment of infomercials featuring “satisfied customers” talking about how much they love their snuggie and how convenient it is. Of course, this is without any mention of customers who’ve bought a snuggie and hated it. Thus it encourages you to make a hasty generalization by not showing the opinions of all buyers of a snuggie.
Another common example of hasty generalization concerns the stereotyping of homosexuals. Many people assume that all homosexuals are very effeminate and flamboyant, loving fashion and gossip. However, to anyone that actually knows or has a gay friend this is definitely untrue. The annual gay pride parade in San Francisco is where many of these stereotypes originate. However, this is only a small sample of the gay population and should not be applied to all homosexuals.
Suppose that you are cooking a pot of spaghetti, and you fish out a single strand to test for doneness. If it is done, then you conclude that all of the spaghetti in the pot is done. Here, your sample is one strand of spaghetti, and the population is the entire potful of pasta. Have you committed the Fallacy of Hasty Generalization? No. Because each strand of pasta is virtually the same, your reasoning in this case is sound. However when we are dealing with a population that is more variable than a pot of spaghetti, such as humans, we need to be more aware of how large a sample is needed to correctly represent the variability.
Here is a video of an example of hasty generalization: *play video*
This bit of dialogue between two men really highlights how easy it is to make a hasty generalization. In criticizing a feminist making a poor judgment, they end up judging all feminists in the same way she did all men.
To sum up what we’ve said here, we all seek to classify things we experience in order to help make decisions about similar items we meet in the future. This generalization is a form of oversimplification and always results in some distortion.
If we generalize too soon, we may classify things incorrectly.