Trying to understand the thread of reasoning here so correct me if I didn't interpret this correctly.

An individual observing some members of a group with different physical characteristic with a certain behavior, an individual infers all members of that group behave that way.

Then with an individual being exposed to a sampling of that groups behavior due to say the news or social media algorithms the individual makes an inference but is unable to account for the bias these sources might have.

> individual infers all members of that group behave that way.

E.g. "all sharks bite legs off"

This leads to survival: not having your legs bitten off.

Even before social media - we're a social and talkative species. More often than not, we're not observing members of a group directly, but we're receiving an already made generalization from other people - which they as well may have received, not made. In the past, the main source of those received generalizations were people we met. Ever since the printing press, it's mass media instead.