Hey what’s up Thinkers! Kathy Gibbens here…
Before we jump in, I wanted to share a quick podcast review that one of you awesome listeners left on Apple podcasts. This one is from erenah22, and she says, “Love this podcast so much. I’ve learned to recognize words and phrases so much more. Thank you.” Thank you, Erena, for leaving me a review! Can I ask you…if you’re enjoying this podcast, would you take just a minute and leave me a review wherever you’re listening right now? It would mean so much to me, and it really helps more people find the show.
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Ok, let’s dive into today’s new fallacy, the Spotlight Fallacy. The Spotlight Fallacy happens when someone assumes that the media coverage a certain event or group receives is representative of everyone in that group or that a certain event is way more common than it actually is. The Spotlight Fallacy also applies to the entertainment industry, where certain events or groups of people are portrayed a certain way in videos & movies and b/c of that attention, everyone thinks that’s what everyone in that group is like.
For instance, if you watch the news regularly, and watch certain types of movies & videos, you could be convinced that all young black males are dangerous and belong to gangs and break the law. But would that really be true? Just b/c the news reported on a few examples or b/c some movies followed that storyline, does that make it true for all or even most young black males? Absolutely not! The Spotlight Fallacy creates a stereotype and we have to be really careful about not falling for the trap of believing stereotypes and we actually have to filter it through a brain cell to see what’s really true.
The problem with the thinking behind the Spotlight Fallacy is that the news media tends to cover events that are less common than in real life, but b/c they receive so much coverage or they receive really sensational coverage, or b/c they get dramatized in movies, many people believe that events that occur often on TV are common in real life.
Here’s a real life example of the Spotlight Fallacy. Back in 2002, a young girl named Elizabeth Smart was abducted from her home by a stranger. Police, her family and a LOT of other people looked for her for 9 months before she was finally found and returned to her family. During those 9 months, this case received a TON of media attention, as you can imagine. All that media attention made parents & children across the country very worried & fearful about the possibility of their children also being abducted from their home by a stranger…all that media attention had made it seem like it was such a problem & a very real, scary possibility! But the truth is, statistically, children who are abducted are way more likely to have been abducted by a family member, a ‘friend’ or someone the family knows, not by a stranger. Now, I don’t mean to use a scary, downer of an example here, but this is exactly the effect the Spotlight Fallacy has on us as humans!
Question to ask yourself: “Is this really as common of a problem as they’re making it seem?” *repeat*
Remember: When you learn HOW to think, you will no longer fall prey to those who are trying to tell you what THEY want you to think and it all starts with asking one simple question: “Is that really true?”
