Heuristics

Question 1

Three main heuristics

Answer 1

1. Availability
2. Representative
3. Anchoring and adjustment

Question 2

Availability Heuristic

Answer 2

The probability of events occurring is judged by how easily these events are brought to mind.

Question 3

Biases associated with the Availability Heuristic

Answer 3

1. When ease of recall is not associated with probability
2. Ease of imaginations is not related to probability
3. Illusory correlation - an overestimation of the frequency with which two events occur together.

Question 4

Representative Heuristic

Answer 4

Judging how representative an object, person or event is of a certain category or process

Question 5

Biases associated with Representative Heuristic

Answer 5

1. Ignoring base rate frequencies
   (Find that 10% of delegates in a convention are salesmen but don’t consider this when judging how ‘typical’ Peter is of a salesman)
2. Expecting sequences of events to appear random
3. Expecting chance to be self-correcting
4. Ignoring regression to the mean
5. The conjunction fallacy

Question 6

Anchoring and Adjustment Heuristic

Answer 6

Where judgements and estimates are made from initial values that would need to be adjusted to obtain a final estimate.

Question 7

Biases associated with the anchoring and adjustment heuristic

Answer 7

1. Insufficient adjustment
2. Overestimating the probability of conjunctive events
3. Underestimating the probability of disjunctive events