What Is Survivorship Bias? | Definition & Example

Survivorship bias defintion can be defined as one of the fascinating words that can distort our perception of data, success and decision making. In the current post we will talk about what is survivorship bias, offer a simple definition of survivorship and explore examples of survivorship bias with a clear understanding of what is survivor bias. This term influences everything from finance to marketing.

Introduction to Survivorship Bias

Have you noticed why we always admire successful people whether they are businessmen, athletes, and entrepreneurs and not consider someone who failed trying the same things? That’s called survivorship bias definition in action known as shortcut key where we only focus on survivors and ignore the non survivors. This led to poor and unethical judgement and flawed conclusions because it doesn’t take into account true data of success and failure.

What Is Survivorship Bias? – A Clear Definition

Survivorship bias defintion or survival bias is a logical error that occurs when we concentrate on things that were made in the past and overlook those which are not taken into consideration. This is because they are either invisible or not available for data analysis. In simple terms survivorship bias is one where we only see the winners and so the perception of success becomes heavily deformed or perverted. Its definition lies in its tendency to mislead by focusing on only success stories while ignoring the lessons that get from loss one.

The History behind Survivorship Bias

The history behind survivorship bias is when failure was being invisible or not being seen by anyone. It was forgotten, intentionally hidden or not wanted to be focused by anyone. Humans have the nature of being drawn towards success stories not failures. This was because it was inspiring, easier and comfortable for analysis. Any analysis based solely on success is incomplete and potentially dangerous. The common reasons behind survivorship bias are following:

1. Selective memory: We have a tendency of remembering successful stories and forgetting failures.
2. Incomplete data: Failure often can be recorded and counted.
3. Media attention: Stories about success catch attention and always in media headlines.
4. Psychological comfort: It feels better to pay attention to who wins the race rather than who loses it.

Real-Life Examples of Survivorship Bias

Survival bias examples are described below:

Fitness and Health Influencers:

Fitness people always share their story of workout routines and diets that worked for their health. But this doesn’t mean it has worked for all in the same regimen and didn’t see the results. This is another classic case of survival bias examples influencing public awareness.

Investment and financial market:

Much financial news highlights high performance mutual funds and stocks portfolios. What they don’t mention is underperforming funds that are often closed or merged into others. These result in poor results that are erased from record. This leads to a distorted view of average results. This is the clear survival bias examples that influences public perception.

Start-ups and Entrepreneurship:

Start-ups like Amazon, Facebook, and Google are often used as terms for entrepreneurial success. There are thousands of start-ups that fail and ignoring the vast majority of failure leads aspiring entrepreneurs to underestimate the risk and celebrate success stories.

How Survivorship Bias Affects Decision-Making

Survivorship bias affects different areas of life especially in the age of social media where only successful stories are accepted. One of the most cited survivorship bias examples is World War 2. This was the example of the survivorship bias plane where the military were tasked with reinforcing bomber planes that come back from mission. They notice that time to repair parts that were damaged. However the statistician Abraham pointed out the flaw that the military was only examining the planes that survived the mission. These cases of survivorship bias show the relevance of considering missing data instead of reinforcing the damaged areas.

Common Areas Where Survivorship Bias Occurs

Survivorship bias or survival bias can quietly distort perception across numerous areas. By focusing only on the successes we can see, we often overlook the hidden failures that hold relevant lessons. Below are some of the common areas of survivorship bias that occurs along with survivorship bias occurs along with survivorship bias examples to highlights its impact:

Publishing and Creative arts: We all believe that talent alone can lead to success such in areas of writing, music or dancing. However for being successful artists there are many countless people whose work never being observed despite equal efforts and features. For example: Aspiring writers believe self publishing results into fame and this ignores the silent majority of unread self publishing books.

Scientific research: In academic publishing positive results are more likely to get published while the other side being ignored or discarded. This creates a form of publication bias that comes in survivorship bias. For example: The studies showing drug effectiveness are published. Doctors may believe the treatment works better but actually it may not.

Career and education: Follow your passion is some of the popular career advice given to people which is often based on stories of people who succeeded. But many of those who followed their passion and failed are not being remembered. This is the area where survivorship bias affects decision making and biases to perception of what actually leads to career support. In another case where the college dropouts who become successful like Bill gates are remembered but these stories ignore the vast number of dropouts who didn’t succeed.

Sports: Athletes who reach the top level of competition are often praised for their success and grit. While the others who are equally dedicated but not being successful and never making it to the top. Failure all this accounts for them presents an unrealistic picture to the route of success.

Survivorship Bias in Business and Investing

Start-ups business and investment: An entrepreneurship story tends to celebrate victories of big companies such as Google, Apple and Tesla. However, most start-ups fail within the starting years and we don’t remember them. Survival bias examples: An aspiring entrepreneur believes they will get success by following Steve Jobs overlooking the other thousand of similar ventures that failed.

Finance: We always try to invest in those funds which are surviving funds and forget the poor performing funds. These poor performing funds are closed and removed from the database which inflates average performance numbers. For example: A newspaper highlighting top performance funds of the past decade and ignore many that already closed. This kind of survivorship bias leads investors to believe success is easy to get.

Why Ignoring Survivorship Bias Can Be Misleading

Survival bias can lead to dangerous flaws in the analysing process, decision making process, planning and plotting process. Here’s why ignoring survivorship can result into misleading:

1. It distorts reality: It presents the incomplete view of reality which is the most misleading fact about the survivorship bias. We only see the half part of the picture which is usually the successful part while other are left out of the equation.
2. It ignores valuable lessons: Failures often offer more actionable insights into the success and this excludes from main analysis activity. We lose critical information regarding risk, and challenges involved in the activity.
3. It creates overconfidence: When someone just focuses on successful outcomes, they become optimistic for their chance of success.
4. It misleads policy and strategy: Business people, government, and industrialists often make their long term strategy on the basis of success stories. Real world decisions need to see both the parts of ground and then should take some decisions.

How to Recognize and Avoid Survivorship Bias

While we can’t always get preferred data, we can take following steps to reduce the impact of survivorship bias in our decision and thinking

Ask what is missing? This is the first step you can do, asking yourself what am I not seeing? Who is the person who failed instead of remembering only successful ones? Find the reason behind what all are not mentioned?

Study failure: The stories of success teach us what can work and stories of failure teach us what doesn’t work. This can be worked by reading post mortem, critiques and case studies that provide a full picture.

Analyse the selection process: Understand and analyse all the steps of the selection process. Analyse how the subjects were selected. Is it possible that you are watching only those who made it through a tough filter? If yes than the results are biased.

Use complete data sets: When possible use some of the datasets that include the story of failure and success this leads to more accurate and reliable understanding.

Beware of double sided evidence: The method that was used for one who succeeds doesn’t mean that method works universally. Look for broader statistical data and numbers.

Conclusion

At last it is concluded that survivorship bias is one of the powerful forces, a concept that often misleads the judgement. It can undermine critical thinking, academic research, and strategic planning. Only focusing on winning stories and ignoring the rest of the people's story can result in biased thinking and lead to flawed assumptions that can lead to poor decisions. Whether you are investing, building a new venture or making decisions regarding studies, remember to analyze every side and aspect to get a full unbiased picture, not just the visible successes. So next time when you hear any successful story of Amazon then pause and ask how many have tried and failed in the same way? The answer might reshape your thinking process.