Gita hears a description of a person who sounds very much like an engineer. Even if Gita knows that the person goes to a college where engineering is a very unpopular degree, he is still as likely to believe that the person is an engineer as he would be if he knew that person went to a college known for engineering. This is an example of _____.

Question

Quizplus · Accepted Answer

This scenario demonstrates the use of the representativeness heuristic, which is a tendency to assign a likelihood based on how well something matches our expectations or prototypes for a given category. In this case, the person's description matches what Gita expects from the prototype of an engineer, overriding any information about the popularity of engineering at their college.

Gita Hears a Description of a Person Who Sounds Very