History Main / SurvivorshipBias

* Zig-zagged in ''Film/{{Psycho}}''. While the DecoyProtagonist [[ItWasHisSled dies early in the film]], after the story continues on, the narrative shifts its emotional investment to the surviving characters and VillainProtagonist.

* The term "caveman". In reality, prehistoric people were nomadic, with a tribe traveling between a large number of locations over a vast territory, sometimes living in gullies, sometimes building huts, and only rarely using caves. However, only a cave has a significant chance of preserving artifacts across tens of millennia.

* [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham_Wald Abraham Wald]] famously applied this trope during UsefulNotes/WorldWarII. He was part of a research group tasked with improving planes' armor by analyzing the location of bullet holes in planes returning from missions. The group suggested adding armor to the places they most often appeared. Wald objected, pointing out that, since all the planes they were looking at had ''survived'' their mission, their damage would appear most often in places that ''didn't'' need armor, and the correct action would be to add armor to the areas ''without'' bullet holes.

** On the topic of [=WW2=] is the myth about the American Sherman tank being a "death trap". Statistics show that it had an excellent survival rate of around 96%, in large part due to large and well-located spring-loaded hatches allowing the crew to bail out of the tank quickly (and each crew member having their own dedicated hatch so they could all escape simultaneously) while competing tanks like the T-34 and Panzer IV had much more cramped interiors (so it was harder to move swiftly while inside them) with fewer escape hatches. This is specifically where myths such as "Shermans being easily destroyed" or "Shermans catching fire easily" come from, ''the crew got out to talk about it''. Statistics indicate that it would take having two Sherman shot out from under them to be at risk of losing ''one'' crewman. Conversely, every time a T-34 was destroyed, it was almost a guarantee you'd lose one crewman, common to lose between two or there, and not unheard-of to lose the whole crew. This was further exacerbated by the fact that Shermans often took damage that could disable the vehicle without utterly destroying it--this led to many Shermans returning for repairs and earning a reputation for fragility. As it turns out, their German and Russian counterparts simply ''exploded'' in a grandiose and unsurvivable fashion due to incoming damage or scuttling charges, and as such never returned for repairs (and therefore never showed up nearly as often in repair reports).

** On the topic of [=WW2=] is the myth about the American Sherman tank being a "death trap". Statistics show that it had an excellent survival rate of around 96%, in large part due to large and well-located spring-loaded hatches allowing the crew to bail out of the tank quickly (and each crew member having their own dedicated hatch so they could all escape simultaneously) while competing tanks like the T-34 and Panzer IV had much more cramped interiors (so it was harder to move swiftly while inside them) with fewer escape hatches. This is specifically where myths such as "Shermans being easily destroyed" or "Shermans catching fire easily" come from, ''the crew got out to talk about it''.

* Discussed on ''Series/AdamRuinsEverything'', when a young man decides he doesn't really need college, since he can just drop out and become a successful entrepreneur like Bill Gates. Adam points out that success stories like that are a rarity, and that only 1% of jobs are given to people without ''at least'' a bachelor's degree. He further explains that Bill Gates ''already'' had several advantages that most people do not (and don't mention when discussing his success). Namely, he came from a wealthy family, who could afford to send him to a prestigious prep school, which had access to a then-state-of-the-art computer that most schools (and homes) did not. He had classes on how to use and create programs for that computer, so he already had ''lots'' of experience with computer programming (again, something that not a lot of people had back in [[TheEighties the early 80's]]). ''And'', while it's true that he didn't complete his bachelor's degree, he also never ''officially'' dropped out of school. (Just took an extended break.) Even if he ''had'', he'd still be able to go back on his wealthy (and supportive) parents' dime if his business plans hadn't worked out the way they did.

** On the topic of [=WW2=] is the myth about the American Sherman tank being a "death trap". Statistics show that it had an excellent survival rate of around 96%, in large part due to large and well-located spring-loaded hatches allowing the crew to bail out of the tank quickly. This is specifically where myths such as "Shermans being easily destroyed" or "Shermans catching fire easily" come from, ''the crew got out to talk about it''.