User talk:Edwin2233/Heuristic

Availability Heuristic

According to Tversky & Kahneman (1973), the availability heuristic can be described as the tendency to consider events that they can remember with greater facilitation as more likely to occur than events that are more difficult to recall. An example of this would be asking someone whether they believe they are more likely to get bitten by a shark attack or die in a drowning incident. Someone may quickly answer with the incorrect belief that you are more likely to die from a shark attack as the event is more easily remembered and is often a big story on the news than drowning incidents. The reality of the answer is that you are at a higher odds of drowning (1 in 1,134) when compared to being bitten by a shark (1 in 4,332,817).

Representative Heuristic

The representativeness heuristic refers to the cognitive bias where people rely on their preconceived mental image/prototype of a particular category or concept rather than actual probabilities and statistical data for making judgments. This behavior often leads to stereotyping/generalization with limited information causing errors as well as distorted views about reality.

For instance, when trying to guess someone's occupation based on their appearance, a representative heuristic might be used by assuming that an individual in a suit must be either a lawyer or businessperson while assuming that someone in uniform fits the police officer or soldier category. This shortcut could sometimes be useful but may also result in stereotypes and overgeneralizations.