Nutz and Boltz, Inc., employs one hundred people; eighty are lawyers and twenty are engineers. Albert, a lawyer at the company, is quiet, likes puzzles, and carries a calculator. Most people, when asked whether Albert is a lawyer or an engineer, will guess that he is an engineer. These people are using __________ to make this faulty guess. A correct guess would have been made if they had used __________.

Question

Quizplus · Accepted Answer

The people are using the representativeness heuristic, which means they are relying on stereotypes or prototypes of what they believe an engineer is like (quiet, likes puzzles, carries a calculator) without considering the base rate of lawyers compared to engineers in the company. A correct guess would have been made if they had used base rate information, which takes into account the proportion of lawyers and engineers in the company.