The story goes that, upon hearing of Richard Nixon's election triumph, a resident of New York's tony Upper East Side exclaimed "But how could that happen? Everybody I know voted for McGovern!"
Usually attributed to film critic Pauline Kael, it's an example of the logical fallacy known as hasty generalization: drawing an overbroad conclusion based on a statistically insufficient sample.
From the Wall Street Journal:
"In reality, Kael was more self-aware than that. What she actually said, as reported by the Times in December 1972, was: "I live in a rather special world. I only know one person who voted for Nixon." But you see how the fallacy works: By her own account, Kael led a parochial life, seldom venturing outside her "special world." If she had mistaken her circle of acquaintances for a representative sample of Americans, she would have been mystified by the election outcome."
To a certain extent, we all live "parochial lives." We can't do everything, see everything or know everyone. But successful marketers and strategists maintain the self-awareness to recognize the trap and say "Hmm. Maybe we need to gather some data here."
Usually attributed to film critic Pauline Kael, it's an example of the logical fallacy known as hasty generalization: drawing an overbroad conclusion based on a statistically insufficient sample.
From the Wall Street Journal:
"In reality, Kael was more self-aware than that. What she actually said, as reported by the Times in December 1972, was: "I live in a rather special world. I only know one person who voted for Nixon." But you see how the fallacy works: By her own account, Kael led a parochial life, seldom venturing outside her "special world." If she had mistaken her circle of acquaintances for a representative sample of Americans, she would have been mystified by the election outcome."
To a certain extent, we all live "parochial lives." We can't do everything, see everything or know everyone. But successful marketers and strategists maintain the self-awareness to recognize the trap and say "Hmm. Maybe we need to gather some data here."
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