Which bias involves ignoring the overall frequency of an event and instead relying on specific examples?

Ignoring base rates is a cognitive bias that occurs when individuals overlook the general frequency or probability of an event happening and instead focus on specific examples or anecdotal evidence. This often leads to misjudgments and errors in assessing risk or likelihood because people tend to give more weight to vivid or memorable cases rather than to statistical data.

For instance, if someone hears of a few dramatic shark attacks, they might become overly fearful of swimming in the ocean, despite knowing statistically that shark attacks are extremely rare. In this way, they ignore the base rate of such events to focus on sensationalized occurrences, culminating in a skewed perspective on actual risk.

This bias is particularly prevalent in decision-making contexts where statistics are essential for informed judgments, such as in medical diagnoses or assessing the likelihood of certain outcomes. By failing to incorporate base rate information, one can arrive at faulty conclusions that don't reflect reality.