Scope neglect (also known as scope insensitivity) is the cognitive bias that causes people to value an issue in ways that ignore or give insufficient weight to its size.

Further reading

Animal Ethics (2020) Scope insensitivity: failing to appreciate the numbers of those who need our help, Animal Ethics.

Kahneman, Daniel & Amos Tversky (eds.) (2000) Choices, Values, and Frames, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 650–657.

Yudkowsky, Eliezer (2015) Scope insensitivity, in Rationality: From AI to Zombies, Berkeley: Machine Intelligence Research Institute, pp. 1453–1455.

Related entries

cognitive bias | debunking argument | expected value | rationality