The Survivorship Bias Test

Survivorship bias occurs when we focus on successful outcomes while overlooking failures. This test is based on a famous real-world problem from World War II that demonstrates how this bias can lead to dangerous conclusions.

How This Test Works:

Historical Problem: You'll be presented with the famous "aircraft armor" dilemma
Your Decision: Choose where to add protective armor based on damage data
Reveal: Learn the correct answer and why survivorship bias is so dangerous

Time required: 3-4 minutes

The Aircraft Armor Problem

World War II Scenario

You are a military analyst during World War II. Allied bombers are suffering heavy losses, and you need to decide where to add armor to protect them better.

Your team has analyzed the damage patterns on aircraft that returned from missions. Here's what you found:

🛩️ Aircraft Damage Analysis

Wings & Fuselage ●●●●●●●●●● (Heavy damage)

Engine & Cockpit ●●● (Light damage)

Your Decision

Given this damage data from returning aircraft, where should you add armor to best protect future missions?

Your Survivorship Bias Results

The Correct Answer: Reinforce Engine & Cockpit

Why This Demonstrates Survivorship Bias

The key insight is that you were only looking at aircraft that survived and returned to base. The planes with heavy engine or cockpit damage never made it back to be counted in your analysis!

✈️ Planes That Returned (What You Saw)

Heavy wing/fuselage damage → Still flyable
Light engine/cockpit damage → Still flyable

💥 Planes That Didn't Return (What You Missed)

Heavy engine damage → Crashed
Heavy cockpit damage → Crashed
Wing/fuselage damage → Often survivable

The areas with less damage on returning planes were actually the most critical to protect, because planes hit there didn't survive to be analyzed.

Historical Context

This problem was actually solved by statistician Abraham Wald during WWII. His insight saved countless lives by focusing armor on the right areas. This became a classic example of survivorship bias in decision-making.

CognitiveBiasLabs.com

Learn More About Survivorship Bias

This bias affects many areas of life, from business to medicine. Want to understand more?

Read Full Explanation