Illusion of validity

Overestimation of ability to interpret and predict outcome when analysing data that shows a consistent pattern. If we feel it tells a coherent story, we are very confident of our prediction.

Cause

People generally go by WYSIATI, 'What you see is all there is.' The illusion of validity may be caused in part by confirmation bias,the tendency to search for, interpret, favour, and recall information in a way that confirms or supports one's prior beliefs or values. It may also be caused by the representativeness heuristic, which is used when making judgments about the probability of an event under uncertainty.

Consequences

May lead to faulty skill assessment in performance evaluations.