Learn English – Technical term for associating a group with the actions of a few

terminology

What is the technical term for when people thinks the actions of the few represent the many.

Like when people thinks everyone in a specific group behaves a certain way cause of how a few people in the group behave, including non stereotypical behaviours. I thought it was "generalisation" but I couldn't find any articles using that term.

Best Answer

The scientific term for this is "the fallacy of composition":

The fallacy of composition arises when one infers that something is true of the whole from the fact that it is true of some part of the whole.

From The University of Tennessee at Martin:

The Composition Fallacy occurs when someone mistakenly assumes that a characteristic of some or all the individuals in a group is also a characteristic of the group itself, the group "composed" of those members.

So when one thinks actions of a subset of a group represent the behavior of the whole group, they are committing the fallacy of composition.