Streetlight Effect

Notes

The story goes as follows: A policeman sees a drunk man searching for something under a streetlight and asks what the drunk has lost. He says he lost his keys and they both look under the streetlight together. After a few minutes the policeman asks if he is sure he lost them here, and the drunk replies, no, and that he lost them in the park. The policeman asks why he is searching here, and the drunk replies, "this is where the light is".

These are cases where Simplicity fails us. This is a type of observational bias, where we focus on where it is easy for us to focus, rather than where we actually should. This can also be conceived as a type of Survivors Bias where we forget to look for the Counterfactual. This is also similar to the McNamara Fallacy, which focuses only on what can be measured.

This is where Visibility leads us astray, it captures most of our attention that we are blind to the hidden, a type of Familiarity bias.

Sometimes, most of what we focus on due to the streetlight effect is just a low-quality Proxy of the real thing.

Visual

Overview

🔼Topic:: Cognitive Bias (MOC) ◀Origin:: 🔗Link::