Although Hal did not win the drawing for the statewide lottery, which sells thousands of tickets, he is much more confident of winning the drawing for the nationwide lottery, which sells millions of tickets. The reason is that whereas he bought just one ticket for the statewide game, he bought ten tickets for the nationwide one. Hal's reasoning is an example of
A) representativeness.
B) a self-serving bias.
C) the ratio bias effect.
D) the gambler's fallacy.
E) fundamental attribution error.

Question

Quizplus · Accepted Answer

The ratio bias effect is the tendency to judge the same probability of an unlikely event (such as winning the lottery) as lower when the probability is presented in the form of a ratio of smaller rather than of larger numbers. When offered an opportunity to win $1 if they drew a red jelly bean, people frequently elected to draw from a bowl that contained a greater total number of jelly beans, but a smaller proportion of red beans (e.g., 7 in 100 vs. 1 in 10). Participants knew the probabilities were against them, but they "felt" they had a better chance when there were more beans.

Although Hal Did Not Win the Drawing for the Statewide