Survivorship Bias
🇳🇴OverlevelsesskjevhetDefinition
Survivorship bias is the tendency to focus on individuals or outcomes that made it through a process while overlooking those that failed, leading to distorted conclusions about success.
Real-world example
Entrepreneurship narratives often highlight successful founders while ignoring the many failed ventures, overstating the odds of success. In investing, surviving funds may appear better because poor performers have already disappeared.
Supplementary perspective
The bias is related to the availability heuristic and narrative fallacy.
Practical advice
Recognize
- —Ask which cases are missing from the analysis.
Counteract
- —Seek data on failures and dropouts.
- —Evaluate the full population.
Ethical use
- —Share balanced stories of success and failure.
- —Set realistic expectations.