Interesting responses
RE:
Leaping to Conclusion Fallacy. This does seem to fit, but it seems rather general. I mean, it's like this fallacy could describe a number of others. Is there a specific definition other than generalizing from a small sample size? I can't recall the statistic used to determine sample size?...
Grrrr....
RE: Agency behind everything that happens. I'm not sure which fallacy this one is. But, little children naturally do, do this (or is that just 'do this'?). They easily attribute things to an unknown agent. There's possibly a survival advantage to this?
For some reason it also reminds me of when someone hits their thumb with a hammer and then they look down at the hammer as if IT purposely hurt them - sometimes even swearing at the hammer and throwing it. I always get a good laugh when I see that sort of scenario play out.
RE: Relationships and stress.
This may be true as well. I mostly would witness this occurring back in University when we shared rooms. Lots of unknown people and lots of chances to misplace stuff because of hectic schedules (stress). Inevitably though, 99.99% of the time the item would turn up in a coat pocket or "Oh, yeah, I left that in my car".
I suppose what's interesting is how people can't help but want to jump to the conclusion someone has stolen instead of jumping to the conclusion THEY left it somewhere. Recently someone I know misplaced (if you can believe this shit) 10 grand. Well, it's gone. I'm sure she was at least contemplating someone might have taken it, and joked a bit about it. Now we all think she had the money in an envelope, maybe the phone rang, she sat it on the table and then when back to packing to go overseas. She's only left the country a couple times (stress) and she forgot about it. Maybe her husband or granddaughter put it in the bin? Poor her (literally!) I actually had a nightmare about it and helped look all over her house. Her husband makes plenty of money and said don't worry about it, it'll turn up or not. She then shot him a look!
Anyway, so, I'm torn, it is Leaping to Conclusion Fallacy but this seems more applicable to sample size in an experiment. The agency.... I don't know but this feels sort of right, however most people attribute the agency to a
person stealing from them. Agency usually means supernatural. Like the hammer scenario. Which brings us to relationships and stress, or being around unknown people, well now I'm so far from fallacy categories I'm not sure anymore - that's more psychology isn't it?
![Eek! :eek: :eek:](data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7)