When people use information about the relative frequency of members of different categories in the population to make judgments (e.g., the percentage of students who are psychology majors), they are using __________.

Question

Quizplus · Accepted Answer

Using information about the relative frequency of members of different categories in the population refers to using base rate information. This is a type of heuristic that involves making judgments based on how often an event or category occurs within a population. The other options (A, B, and C) do not fully capture this concept. The representativeness heuristic involves judging the likelihood of an event based on how closely it resembles other events or prototypes, while the availability heuristic involves judging the likelihood of an event based on how easily examples of it come to mind. Census data refers specifically to data collected by the government, and may not always relate directly to the base rate of a given population.

When People Use Information About the Relative Frequency of Members