PSYC 1020H Lecture Notes - Lecture 8: Representativeness Heuristic, Bounded Rationality, Conjunction Fallacy

• School: Trent University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSYC 1020H
• Professor: Kateryna Keefer

Document Summary

Heuristics: fast and efficient decision-making strategies, rules of thumb, assumptions, reasonably good, but can also lead to errors. Judgments & decision-making: evaluating alternatives and making choices. Theories of decision-making: rational- how we ought to make decisions, rational, too idealized, descriptive- how we actually make decisions, heuristics, errors & biases. Rational choice theory: evaluate the likelihood & value of each alternative. Choose one with the highest expected gain. In reality, probability and value are uncertain: rely on heuristics to estimate both. Errors in probability judgements: availability heuristic, representativeness heuristic, conjunction fallacy. Judging probability of an event based on now easily examples comes to mind (i. e. , available in memory: assume: easier to imagine more frequently/likely, but: may be just more familiar, vivid, recent. Resulting errors: overestimate chances of rare memorable events, underestimate chances of common mundane events. Judging probability of an event based solely on how similar it is to the prototype of that event: assume: more prototypical more likely.