In an experiment, participants were told of a previously unknown tribe living on a Pacific island. Only one member of this tribe had been observed so far, and he was found to be obese. When asked how likely it was that all members of the tribe were obese, participants were unwilling to extrapolate this information. This shows that participants

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The participants' unwillingness to extrapolate the observation of one obese tribe member to assume the entire tribe is obese shows that they are sensitive to the sample size and are taking this into account when making judgments. This suggests that they recognize that a single observation may not be representative of the whole population. This is an example of statistical reasoning. Option A is incorrect because the representative heuristic refers to the tendency to judge the likelihood of an event based on how closely it represents a particular prototype or stereotype. Option B is incorrect because there is no information in the scenario about prior beliefs participants may have held. Option D is incorrect as there is no indication in the scenario that participants were wary of making an error.

In an Experiment, Participants Were Told of a Previously Unknown