仓促的概括是一种谬误，即得出的结论在逻辑上没有充分或无偏见的证据来证明。它也被称为样本不足、逆向事故、错误的概括、有偏见的概括、仓促下结论、第二个问题以及对资格的忽视。

作家罗伯特·B·帕克（Robert B.Parker）通过其小说《六杀》（Sixkill）中的一段摘录阐释了这一概念：

"It was a rainy day in Harvard Square, so the foot traffic through the atrium from Mass Ave to Mount Auburn Street was heavier than it might have been if the sun were out. A lot of people were carrying umbrellas, which most of them furled inside. I had always thought that Cambridge, in the vicinity of Harvard, might have had the most umbrellas per capita of any place in the world. People used them when it snowed. In my childhood, in Laramie, Wyoming, we used to think people who carried umbrellas were sissies. It was almost certainly a hasty generalization, but I had never encountered a hard argument against it."

样本量太小

根据定义，一个基于草率概括的论点总是从具体到一般。它只需要一个小样本，并试图推断出一个关于该样本的想法，然后将其应用到更大的人群中，但它不起作用。T.Edward Damer解释道：

"It is not uncommon for an arguer to draw a conclusion or generalization based on only a few instances of a phenomenon. In fact, a generalization is often drawn from a single piece of supporting data, an act that might be described as committing the fallacy of the lonely fact....Some areas of inquiry have quite sophisticated guidelines for determining the sufficiency of a sample, such as in voter preference samples or television viewing samples. In many areas, however, there are no such guidelines to assist us in determining what would be sufficient grounds for the truth of a particular conclusion." —From "Attacking Faulty Reasoning," 4th ed. Wadsworth, 2001

概括作为一个整体，不管是否仓促，充其量都是有问题的。即便如此，大样本量也不能让你摆脱困境。你想要概括的样本需要代表整个人群，而且应该是随机的。比如，2016年总统选举前的民调遗漏了最终投票给唐纳德·特朗普的部分民众，因此低估了他的支持者及其对选举的潜在影响。民意测验者知道这场竞赛将势均力敌，然而，由于没有一个具有代表性的样本来概括结果，他们错了。

伦理后果

刻板印象源于试图对人或群体进行概括。这样做充其量只是一个雷区，最坏的情况下，是有道德考虑的。朱莉娅·T·伍德解释道：

"A hasty generalization is a broad claim based on too-limited evidence. It is unethical to assert a broad claim when you have only anecdotal or isolated evidence or instances. Consider two examples of hasty generalizations based on inadequate data: "Three congressional representatives have had affairs. Therefore, members of Congress are adulterers. "An environmental group illegally blocked loggers and workers at a nuclear plant. Therefore, environmentalists are radicals who take the law into their own hands. "In each case, the conclusion is based on limited evidence. In each case the conclusion is hasty and fallacious." —From "Communication in Our Lives," 6th ed. Wadsworth, 2012

批判性思维是关键

总体而言，为了避免制造、传播或相信草率的概括，退后一步，分析观点，并考虑来源。如果一个陈述来自一个有偏见的来源，那么它背后的观点需要告知你对所陈述的观点的理解，因为它提供了上下文。寻找真理，寻找支持和反对陈述的证据，因为正如谚语所说，每一个故事都有两面性，真理往往位于中间的某个地方。