Comments on: Have you heard of ‘Survivorship Bias’?

By: Gemsplums

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By: KarmaCW

KarmaCW — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 06:19:13 +0000

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By: vjkrishna

vjkrishna — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 22:21:47 +0000

Here is a brand new theme for ‘Critical Thoughts’. Hope you guys like it as much as I do. I’m almost sure that one half of you would say that this theme sucks. For some reason, with this theme, blogging-wise, I somewhat feel liberated. It is either the simplicity of the theme or the size of fonts or the importance for the text or something else. Cheers!

By: vjkrishna

vjkrishna — Sun, 04 Apr 2010 16:46:47 +0000

Well yes . . they are completely different posts. The ‘winner takes it all’ was all about my sympathy towards people who think they are losers. It’s about how the society treats them and how they treat themselves. Whereas this post is all about statistics.
In human thoughts (not just relations), all kinds of biases (incl this one) and prejudices do exist generally. That’s where the concept of ‘critical thinking’ comes in.

By: Santy

Santy — Sun, 04 Apr 2010 15:37:56 +0000

I was just trying to explore the possibilities of such biases in human relations as well. I agree that understanding suvivorship bias will help in making good decisions by picking up a perfect sample. However also wanted to know how this will apply in human mindset / behaviour.
Do you mean to say that such biases are not there in human relations ? And this topic is not related to such biases at all? I see a close relationship between this post and one of your earlier posts named “Winner takes it all”. Do you think these are completely different topics?

By: vjkrishna

vjkrishna — Sun, 04 Apr 2010 05:54:34 +0000

Santy – I’m afraid you’re missing the point there. Weighing the existing results (positive + negative) as the whole population makes for a better statistical method than just going only the positives or only the negatives. This concept doesn’t relate to optimism or pessimism. This concept relates to a sound statistical method considering all results that make a complete population.
The concept is not about looking at failures and learning from them. The concept is all about not glorifying the certain samples of a whole population, which might give you skewed results. Basically, this is about statistics and not about confidence or mindset (optimism/pessimism).

By: Santy

Santy — Sat, 03 Apr 2010 14:51:39 +0000

Haa! Anusha stole the words from my mouth! I completely agree with the way survivorship bias was related with optimistic mind set.
Motivation is the key to success. I am not talking about getting motivated by others. I am talking about self motivation. How much one is able to keep himself motivated is largely influenced by survivors and not by those who didn’t. I agree that there are lots to learn from the other group as well. It’s good to know where they went wrong but not always. The more you start reading things that did not go right dont you some how push your mind towards low morale? Doesn’t it make people get nervous?
I agree with that plane example that you said. How about a 12th standard student studying for public examination. Wouldn’t he become nervous when he start looking upto people who failed. Fine that he has to see why he failed and start ensuring that he also did not make the same mistake. However it somehow puts in that negative thought of failure which wasn’t there until then!
Same with a batsman who has to hit a six of the last ball. He certainly cant think about players who did not make it when he is facing the ball! Wouldn’t it make his hands wetter than making his heart hotter!

By: vjkrishna

vjkrishna — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 20:49:24 +0000

Very well said Anusha! Yes, the survivorship bias has sometimes to do with ‘optimistic’ outlook. In fact, being ‘optimistic’ or ‘pessimistic’ might also (not always) bias the thoughts and conclusions.

By: Anusha

Anusha — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 10:03:19 +0000

An amazing post and an amazing concept. I am truly impressed with the concept. This is what is happening almost always and what we are doing on a day-to-day basis. The example of the planes being gunned down is truly impressive. I guess survivorship bias is also a way of trying to be optimistic. Now am really beginning to wonder about the famous quote “Learning from experience”. It probably helps as long as it is not a survivor experience.