Elite Survivors
Misrepresenting reality through survivorship bias to increase sales, user adoption, and engagement, including the glorification of luxury.
Examples
Success stories in marketing sites, video testimonials, reviews, and other promotional materials mislead by highlighting the hero myth, where the featured individual is an outlier, resulting in misrepresentation and exploitation of the narrative fallacy.
Awards and recognition are presented as merit-based but are actually determined by ratings rather than actual effort.
Content is showcased in a way that misrepresents the typical user experience, creating unrealistic expectations.
Companies misleading users by promoting WiFi speeds without mentioning variability.
Companies advertise battery capacity or performance without disclosing natural degradation over time.
Altruheuristics
Biology
- Memes: Stories spread and are believed to be common when rare.
- Truth: Only highlights are mentioned in the story.
- Comparison: Provides a false sense of hope using the hero story without mentioning all variables involved.
CBT Distortions
- Global Labelling e.g. I could be like that success story too.
- Personalization e.g. Thinking that success stories must be very common when not.
Biases
- Framing Bias
- Narrative Fallacy
- Survivorship Bias
- Bandwagon Effect
- Conformity Bias
- Authority Bias
- Affinity Bias
Circ’s Principles
- Transparency: Display risks of biases and distortions for illusive interactions that are unavoidable.
Mental Health
- None.
Traditional Heuristics
Jakob Nielson Principles
- None
Gestalt
- None
Don Norman Principles
- None
Graphic Design
- None
Deceptive Patterns
- None