Types of Fallacies and Bias

By: Agpasa, Travis Ulrich P.

A. Types of Fallacies

1. Straw man

A straw man fallacy occurs when someone distorts or exaggerates another person’s argument,
and then attacks the distorted version of the argument instead of genuinely engaging.

Example:

Person 1: I think pollution from humans contributes to climate change.

Person 2: So, you think humans are solely responsible for extreme weather? What about
volcanoes? Are we to blame for those, too?

2. Ad hominem

This fallacy occurs when, instead of addressing someone's argument or position, you irrelevantly
attack the person or some aspect of the person who is making the argument. The fallacious attack can
also be direct to membership in a group or institution.

Example:

Socrates' arguments about human excellence are rubbish. What could a man as ugly as he
knows about human excellence.

3. False Dilemma

A false dilemma is a fallacy that misrepresents an issue by presenting only two mutually
exclusive options rather than the full, nuanced range of options.

Example:

If we don’t order pizza for dinner, we’ll have to eat the week-old spaghetti in the fridge.
 4. Non sequitur

A non sequitur is a conclusion or reply that doesn’t follow logically from the previous statement.

Example:

Non sequiturs are often used for comedic effect in movies, novels, and TV shows. When
someone says a non sequitur, it usually means the person was off in her own thoughts and not listening
to the other person. Imagine that one girl says, “I’m worried that my sister is mad at me,” and her friend
replies, “I wonder what you call a male ladybug?” The non sequitur shows the friend clearly wasn't
listening.

5. Slippery slope

A slippery slope fallacy occurs when someone makes a claim about a series of events that would
lead to one major event, usually a bad event. In this fallacy, a person makes a claim that one event leads
to another event and so on until we come to some awful conclusion. Along the way, each step or event
in the faulty logic becomes more and more improbable.

Example:

If you don’t pass tomorrow’s math exam, then you can’t take calculus next year. If you don’t
take calculus, you won’t be accepted into the master’s program you want. Therefore, if you fail
tomorrow’s math test, you won’t get a master’s degree!

6. Appeal to authority

The appeal to authority fallacy is the logical fallacy of saying a claim is true simply because an
authority figure made it. This authority figure could be anyone: an instructor, a politician, a well-known
academic, an author, or even an individual with experience related to the claim’s subject.

Example:

Student A: I really want to go to grad school, but I’m not sure how to stand out from the other
applicants.

Student B: My adviser told me I’m a stronger candidate for grad school if I take advanced writing
courses.

7. Hasty Generalization

A hasty generalization fallacy is a claim made on the basis of insufficient evidence. Instead of
looking into examples and evidence that are much more in line with the typical or average situation, you
draw a conclusion about a large population using a small, unrepresentative sample.
 Due to this, we often form a judgment about a group of people or items based on too small of a
sample, which can lead to wrong conclusions and misinformation.

Example:

You have a transit flight via Frankfurt Airport, Germany. On the way to your gate, several
passengers hastily bump into you without even apologizing. You conclude that “Germans are so rude!”

8. Red herring

A red herring is a misleading statement, question, or argument meant to redirect a conversation

away from its original topic.

Example:

Person 1: You always leave your stuff all over the room, you don’t lock the door behind you, and
the trash is piling up. You’re a slob!

Person 2: Well you never pull your car all the way into the driveway, so I’m always stuck having
to park on the street!

9. Equivocation

In logic, equivocation is an informal fallacy resulting from the use of a particular

word/expression in multiple senses within an argument.

Example:

Since only man [human] is rational.

And no woman is a man [male].

Therefore, no woman is rational.

10. Circular reasoning

A circular argument (or circular reasoning) is an argument that comes back to its beginning
without having proven anything. An argument consists of one or more statements (premise) and a claim
(conclusion).

Example:

Parent: “It’s time to go to bed.”

Child: “Why?”

Parent: “Because this is your bedtime.”

 B. Types of Bias

1. Confirmation bias

Confirmation bias is the tendency to seek out and prefer information that supports our
preexisting beliefs. As a result, we tend to ignore any information that contradicts those beliefs.

Example:

During presidential elections, people tend to seek information that paints the candidate they
support in a positive light, while dismissing any information that paints them in a negative light.

This type of research bias is more likely to occur while processing information related to
emotionally charged topics, values, or deeply held beliefs.

2. Selection bias

Selection bias occurs when individuals or groups in a study differ systematically from the
population of interest leading to a systematic error in an association or outcome.

Example:

Health studies that recruit participants directly from clinics miss all the cases who don’t attend
those clinics or seek care during the study.

Due to this, the sample and the target population may differ in significant ways, limiting your
ability to generalize your findings.

3. Halo effect

The halo effect is the tendency for positive impressions of a person, company, country, brand, or
product in one area to positively or negatively influence one's opinion or feelings in other areas.

Example:

A classic example is when one assumes that a physically attractive individual is likely to also be
kind, intelligent, and sociable. We are inclined to attribute positive characteristics to this attractive
person even if we have never interacted with them.
 4. Sampling bias

Sampling bias occurs when some members of a population are systematically more likely to be
selected in a sample than others.

Example:

You want to study procrastination and social anxiety levels in undergraduate students at your
university using a simple random sample. You assign a number to every student in the research
participant database from 1 to 1500 and use a random number generator to select 120 numbers.

Although you used a random sample, not every member of your target population –
undergraduate students at your university – had a chance of being selected. Your sample misses anyone
who did not sign up to be contacted about participating in research. This may bias your sample towards
people who have less social anxiety and are more willing to participate in research.

5. Publication bias

Publication bias is defined as the failure to publish the results of a study on the basis of the
direction or strength of the study findings.

Example:

In 2014, Franco et al. studied publication bias in the social sciences by analyzing a sample of 221
studies whose publication status was known. The sample was drawn from an archive called Time-sharing
Experiments in the Social Sciences (TESS).

Because TESS proposals undergo rigorous peer review, the sample studies drawn from the
archive were all considered to be of high quality. Additionally, researchers could see in this archive
whether the studies were eventually published or not.

Studies were classified into three categories:

a. Strong – all or most hypotheses were supported

b. Null – all or most hypotheses were not supported
c. Mixed – representing the rest

The authors found that only 10 out of 48 null results were published, while 56 out of 91 studies
with strongly statistically significant results made it into an academic journal.

In other words, there was a strong relationship between the results of a study and whether it
was published, a pattern that indicates publication bias.
 6. Survivorship bias

Survivorship bias is a type of sample selection bias that occurs when an individual mistakes a
visible successful subgroup as the entire group. In other words, survivorship bias occurs when an
individual only considers the surviving observation without considering those data points that didn't
“survive” in the event.

Example:

A famous and early example of survivorship bias involves planes returning from missions during
World War Two. The military wanted to put armor on the aircraft to protect vulnerable spots. However,
they couldn't place armor everywhere because it would be too heavy.

7. Gender bias

Gender bias is the tendency to prefer one gender over another.

Example:

For example, comments that girls are not as good at math as boys. Being called derogatory
names related to your sexual orientation. Being misgendered by classmates or teachers. Being told by a
teacher that they expect more (or less) of you because you are a girl, boy, or non-binary person.

8. Attribution bias

Attribution bias refers to the negative tendency of an individual to judge a person on their
character rather than the circumstances responsible for their particular action.

Example:

Situation – You’re driving along the motorway and another car cuts in front of you in an erratic,
haphazard way.

Biased interpretation – You might draw some conclusions about the other driver’s character
based on their poor driving. Perhaps you think they’re rude, arrogant, or aggressive.

Reality – What you don’t know, however, is that the driver is speeding to the A&E department
following a serious accident. They’re driving badly because they’re injured.
 9. Self-serving bias

A self-serving bias is any cognitive or perceptual process that is distorted by the need to
maintain and enhance self-esteem, or the tendency to perceive oneself in an overly favorable manner.

Example:

For example, an athlete is more likely to attribute a good performance on their own ability, and
a poor one on external causes like the event environment.

10. Hindsight bias

Hindsight bias is a psychological phenomenon that allows people to convince themselves after
an event that they accurately predicted it before it happened.

Example:

A spectator claiming, “I knew they were going to win!” after the game was over. An investor
thinking, “I knew that stock was going to go up!” after the stock had already increased in value. A person
stating, “I knew that relationship wasn't going to work out!” after a couple breaks up.