When Becky meets her new roommate,she sees that she has her hair dyed blue and has decorated her side of the room with lots of handmade ceramic pots and paintings.She then assumes that her roommate has multiple piercings and listens to punk rock.She has used ____ heuristic in making this assumption.

Question

Quizplus · Accepted Answer

Becky has used the representativeness heuristic in making this assumption. This is based on the idea that people tend to judge the likelihood of an event or object based on how closely it fits with their pre-existing mental representation or stereotype of that category. In this case, Becky has a pre-existing mental representation of what a person with blue hair and handmade ceramic pots might be like (e.g. multiple piercings, listening to punk rock), and she assumes that her roommate fits this stereotype.

When Becky Meets Her New Roommate,she Sees That She Has