Week 6_Class 2

Question 1

What is the representativeness heuristic?

Answer 1

Where you base likelihood on similarity, not probability.

Question 2

What are the biases of the representativeness heuristic?

Answer 2

• Conjunction errors
• Neglect of base rates
• Misconceptions of chance
• Neglect of sample size

Question 3

What did K and T discover with the lawyers and engineer study?

Answer 3

Subjects ignored base rates, and based their estimates of similarity between description and stereotype of engineer or lawyer.

Question 4

What is the error people make with misconceptions of chance? (Like a roulette wheel)

Answer 4

A small sample of outcomes should be representative of the 50-50 generating process. If there’s a string of 10 blacks, then the next should be red.

Question 5

What error do people make in the birth sequence problem?

Answer 5

People think GBGBBG is more representative of a 50/50 population then BGBBBB.

Question 6

What was the recent finding regarding the birth sequence problem?

Answer 6

When the direction of comparison is reversed, so do the results.

There were 72 [representative sequences], how many [unrepresentative sequences] were there?

There were 72 [unrepresentative sequences], how many [representative sequences] were there?

Question 7

For a period of one year, each hospital recorded the days on which
[more/less] than 60% of the babies born were boys. Which hospital
do you think recorded more such days?

Answer 7

People said the larger hospital, but that’s wrong.

But the actual answer is the small.