Survivorship Bias - Explained
What is Survivorship Bias?
Written by J. Mance Gordon
Updated at April 22nd, 2024
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What is Survivorship Bias?
Survivorship bias is a type of selection and cognitive bias that occurs when survival is used as a metric for making vital decisions. That is, it is an error that occurs when people or things that survived certain processes and stages are given attention and those that did not are ignored. Survivorship bias can lead to wrong conclusions and selections.
How does Survivorship Bias Work?
Survivorship bias is both a selection and logical (cognitive) error that occurs when survival is used as a singular factor for determining the success of a thing or making conclusions.
Survivorship bias often occurs when the historical data, past successes, and general attributes of a person, fund, or thing is considered in a selection process.