Seventy percent of the students in a classroom are women and 30 percent are men. One student is described as ambitious, athletic, and assertive. Why are most people likely to think this description refers to a male student?
A) They are using the availability heuristic.
B) They are using the representativeness heuristic.
C) People seek only confirming information.
D) People tend to make relative comparisons.

Question

Quizplus · Accepted Answer

People are using the representativeness heuristic, which is the tendency to judge the likelihood of an event based on how similar it is to a typical example or prototype. In this case, the typical or prototypical example of an ambitious, athletic, and assertive person is often considered to be a male, leading people to assume that the described student is most likely male.

Seventy Percent of the Students in a Classroom Are Women