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?

Question

Quizplus · Accepted Answer

The representativeness bias leads people to make judgments based on how similar something is to a typical or representative example. In our society, stereotypically, men are considered to be more ambitious, athletic, and assertive than women. Therefore, people might assume that the student being described as such is likely to be male, even though the gender distribution in the classroom is heavily skewed towards women.

Seventy Percent of the Students in a Classroom Are Women