Judith is a third-year undergraduate student who lists her interests as computer gaming, and online communities. Based on this description, you might assume that Judith is more likely to be a computer science major than a psychology major because you think those interests are more common among computer science majors. On your campus, there are very few computer science majors, and a lot of psychology majors. Your judgment is likely based on the __________ heuristic but might be wrong due to the __________.

Question

Quizplus · Accepted Answer

The description of Judith's interests lead us to use the representative heuristic, which involves making judgments based on how closely something matches our prototype of a particular category (in this case, a computer science major). However, the fact that there are very few computer science majors on campus means that using the base rate (i.e. the actual proportion of computer science majors on campus) would be more accurate, making this an example of the base rate fallacy.

Judith Is a Third-Year Undergraduate Student Who Lists Her Interests