It is Dangerous to Generalize!

If you think about it, it’s kind of obvious. We are making generalizations all of the time. If you say that birds can fly, you are making a generalization. If you say that elephants are grey or the water is blue, you are making a generalization. They can be pretty useful. After all, it makes it possible to simplify things. Just imagine if you’d have to state the flight capability for every species of birds separately: Sparrows can fly, cardinals can fly, hummingbirds can fly,… (I hope you get my point). So a generalization makes it easier to think about certain ideas or concepts. In general, it’s quite useful.

But this generalization leaves out quite a few things unfortunately. It doesn’t include the exceptions to the rule. For example penguins are considered to be birds. But they can’t fly. So the generalization that all birds can fly is simply wrong. It leaves out the cases which aren’t included in the rule.

This example, no doubt, doesn’t have all too far reaching consequences. The discovery of penguins and their inability to fly can simply be noted in a scientists diary — contributing to the ever growing database of human knowledge. The fact that penguins can’t fly doesn’t really cause any big issues.

But what about social issues. For example, think about racism and the often heard notion that blacks commit more crimes than whites. That is obviously a generalization. It wrongly suggests that a very complex problem — the causes of crime — can be simplified to a single statement. But exactly in this lies the temptation: The mind is all too eager to simplify the complex world it lives in. Generalizations are simplifications. The mind strives for simplifications simply because more complex cognitive processes (i.e., thinking) require more energy. So the mind is eager to simplify things.

To see structures where there are only dots is quite an advantage. To see a face in a sea of colors is helpful for the brain. We can recognize people we know, we can recognize people who might pose a threat. The mind is very good at recognizing structures, familiar contours, or reoccurring patterns. It has evolved to do this. And through this we have survived and flourished. It has helped us get by the dangers of extinction — at least when seen on a societal level.

However, unfortunately the world is filled with generalizations about all sorts of social issues. Without falling into the trap of making generalizations when talking about generalizations, let’s look at some daily examples of these kinds of occurrences. For example, at home: your roommate doesn’t wash the dishes. You might be tempted in thinking that your roommate is an untidy person. Or think of a person driving a Porsche. Perhaps he or she has a bad driving habit and cuts you in a line. It is easy to tag that person with a negative label and extend it to all Porsche drivers. And what about the foreigner you meet on the street and spits on the floor? Is it not tempting to project this negative experience onto all of his or her ethnic group?

But if you think about it, it seems rather ridiculous to make generalizations like Americans are nasty people or Porsche drivers are bad drivers. Even for your roommate a generalization of untidiness is inaccurate because you simply can’t know that person to the extent that a generalization would be adequate — people are always changing and one can never know everything about a person (and yes, that generalization seems to be adequate here).

Generalizations like this cause social conflict and in the worst case can lead to violence and even war. But it seems hard for the mind to see this problem. We seem to forget that we have made a generalization and that this generalization is the basis for many of our actions.

However, perhaps by simply becoming aware of this problem and its far reaching consequences it entails, it can also be the first step in alleviating it.