CHAPTER 8.5: Representative Heuristic

Question 1

what is the conjunction fallacy

Answer 1

mistaken belief that finding a specific member in two overlapping categories is more likely than finding any member of one of the larger and more general categories

Question 2

what is the representative heuristic

Answer 2

making judgements of likelihood based on how well an example represents a specific category.

we tend to substitute probability for resemblance

Question 3

what is the gamblers fallacy

Answer 3

belief that prior outcomes of events that have fixed probabilities will effect future probabilities!

ex. thinks that if you get heads on one coin flip, you will get tails next but the probability of getting heads and tails is equally likely!

Question 4

what is base rate neglect.

give a common example

Answer 4

when people ignore base probability information!

ex. if asking participants when choosing someone at random from 70 lawyers and 30 engineers, they know that the likely profession will have 70% chance to be lawyer and 30% chance to be engineer.

but if you give descriptions of certain people that are stereotypical of engineers/lawyers, they will change their responses and ignore the base rate info based on the descriptions