Let's Not Fall Prey To Sampling Error By Generalizing A Bad Experience

"I don’t like this type of guys," queered my friend when she saw a guy sitting on the next table. I was inquisitive about her reaction as this guy had just come and sat on the next table when she freaked out. "What's up with you and him?" I asked and she was quiet. After a brief pause, she shared her past bad experience with a guy, who looked similar. I was startled at this. How is it possible to form an opinion about all similar looking people, by one bad experience? I delved further into it. Post a few rounds of questions, I learned that the experience was bad because of the mental and emotional agony she went through post the experience.

We all have bad experiences once in a while, irrespective of caste, creed, age, gender, location, background, profession and status in society. Such events in life, sharpen the learning curve, so that WE don’t repeat the mistake. A scamster will always exist and can be present anywhere. It's our personal learning curve that deflects their success. We have to be lucky all the time, while the scamster has to be lucky just once.

It's like, if a red car is involved in an accident, then are all red cars bad or all red car drivers dangerous or killers?

If a person has misbehaved with you, all people looking like him or dressed like him, are bad, is a false assumption and enduring that as a fact, would fall under "the sampling error."

Harshad Mehta stirred the media with his success and his failures. He proved to be the first scamster of Stock market. Does that make all people named Mehtas like him? NO.

Let's not fall prey to this sampling error by generalizing the bad experience, because we look outwards to blame and answers but not within for the same. If someone has fooled me, ask yourself:

• What weakness of mine was exploited?
• What should I do differently, to avoid that scam being pulled on me again?
• Has anyone else too suffered like me?
• What can I learn from other people's experiences?

When you decipher the answers to these, you shall be able to ultimately categorize the answers in the following buckets of vulnerability.

Physical vulnerability

A few of us like fashion and would go at lengths, to stay with the trends. Self-infatuation with any physical aspect (be it good clothes, perfumes, accessories, jewellery, good possessions, etc.) makes you a good target for being scammed. Self-indulgence is good but blind infatuation is not.

Emotional vulnerability

Being a human, is the state of emotional being and that is the strongest as well as the weakest point. This is a double tipped scale/balance. A tilt onto one side and you are emotionally strong like a dictator, but then love diminishes from the equation. The tilt on the other side, makes love supreme, but then self confidence and will power goes away from the equation. A true balance of these aspects is highly necessary in life.

The genius bug vulnerability

Many people have an articulate mind and like numbers above emotions. One needs to look beyond the numbers and take judgemental calls. Anything too good to be true or that beats the general expectation, is generally a scam. Scamsters like to build models around loose assumptions or false data points and pull a Harshad Mehta on you.

Make friends wisely. In case of adventurism related to money, please consult a good financial adviser and a lawyer, before taking the deep dive.

Whatever be your path, try not to get judgemental based on one single experience as that would be a sampling error and an error is an error no matter what.  Please remember that the other guy succeeded, because YOU LET HIM/HER DO SO. This shall make peace with yourself and move on in life.

The views expressed are the author's own.