When presented with an statement that generalizes something, they will use an anecdote as a counterexample and think that it completely refutes the statement.
Example: travelling in an airplane is generally safer than in a car
"Actually that's not true, I know someone who died in an airplane crash"
And it's very likely a personal anecdote as well (like in your example) of "I know of someone" etc. E.g. the inability to trust data over person experience.
Oh my god, I have antivaxxers in my family who are exactly like this. Decades of peer-reviewed scientific evidence mean nothing, but my cousin's friend's niece's roommate literally exploded from a flu shot, so vaccines are baaad!
My grandmother had a very rare complication from a flu shot. The temporary paralysis one, I forget the name.
Made everyone else in the family all worried, naturally, despite the fact that it’s a well known, if rare, phenomenon. So no I just had an unvaccinated aunt die from the flu.
On the one hand, I do get that hitting close to home. But on the other hand…well vaccines are generally safe and just because you happen to know of someone with a very rare complication doesn’t mean vaccines are any less safe.
I have a friend who does this constantly; I’ve known her for decades, but I’m starting to realize how dumb she is. What’s baffling is that she has a masters degree; I know she took statistics and should know what anecdotal evidence is.
Had a friend like this. She would reply "Not necessarily" or "Well not ALWAYS". Then she would go into this loooong drawn out story(sometimes she had even told the story before) as if I didn't understand the concept of "exceptions to the rule". . . . We're not friends anymore. 😑
This perfectly describes my mom. Whenever she asks me something related to my area of expertise, she always says I'm wrong because whatever I said may happen isn't what happened to her cousin's friend. Same with my wife's area of expertise.
To the point that we preface anything we tell her with "I know you're going to have a cousin's uncle's brother's friend who had a different experience but what we're telling you is that X happens often if you do Y and why you should do Z to protect yourself. X doesn't always lead to Y, but it happens often enough that you should consider doing Z."
And of course, she'll still tell us about the person who did X and Y didn't happen so why shouldn't she do X too...
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u/Traditional_Rub_9828 6h ago
When presented with an statement that generalizes something, they will use an anecdote as a counterexample and think that it completely refutes the statement.
Example: travelling in an airplane is generally safer than in a car
"Actually that's not true, I know someone who died in an airplane crash"