Editing Representativeness heuristic (section)

{{Short description|Tool for assisting judgement in uncertainty}}
The '''representativeness heuristic''' is used when making judgments about the probability of an event being representational in character and essence of a known prototypical event.<ref name="kt72">{{harvnb|Kahneman|Tversky|1972}}</ref> It is one of a group of [[heuristics in judgment and decision-making|heuristics]] (simple rules governing judgment or decision-making) proposed by [[psychologist]]s [[Amos Tversky]] and [[Daniel Kahneman]] in the early 1970s as "the degree to which [an event] (i) is similar in essential characteristics to its parent population, and (ii) reflects the salient features of the process by which it is generated".<ref name="kt72" />  
The representativeness heuristic works by comparing an event to a prototype or stereotype that we already have in mind. For example, if we see a person who is dressed in eccentric clothes and reading a poetry book, we might be more likely to think that they are a poet than an accountant. This is because the person's appearance and behavior are more representative of the stereotype of a poet than an accountant.

The representativeness heuristic can be a useful shortcut in some cases, but it can also lead to errors in judgment. For example, if we only see a small sample of people from a particular group, we might overestimate the degree to which they are representative of the entire group. 
Heuristics are described as "judgmental shortcuts that generally get us where we need to go – and quickly – but at the cost of occasionally sending us off course."<ref name="GS96">{{cite journal|last1=Gilovich|first1=Thomas|last2=Savitsky|first2=Kenneth|title=Like Goes with Like: The Role of Representativeness in Erroneous and Pseudo-Scientific Beliefs|year=1996|pages=34–40|journal=Skeptical Inquirer|volume=20|issue=2|doi=10.1017/CBO9780511808098.036|url=http://web.viu.ca/burnleyc/Psychology%20331/Like%20Goes%20with%20Like.pdf|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141104225634/http://web.viu.ca/burnleyc/Psychology%20331/Like%20Goes%20with%20Like.pdf|url-status=dead|archive-date=2014-11-04}}</ref> Heuristics are useful because they use effort-reduction and simplification in decision-making.<ref name="Shah08">{{cite journal|last1=Shah|first1=Anuj K.|last2=Oppenheimer|first2=Daniel M.|title=Heuristics made easy: An effort-reduction framework|journal=Psychological Bulletin|volume=134|issue=2|year=2008|pages=207–222|doi=10.1037/0033-2909.134.2.207|pmid=18298269}}</ref>

When people rely on representativeness to make judgments, they are likely to judge wrongly because the fact that something is more representative does not actually make it more likely.<ref name="tk82">{{harvnb|Tversky|Kahneman|1982}}</ref> The representativeness heuristic is simply described as assessing similarity of objects and organizing them based around the category prototype (e.g., like goes with like, and causes and effects should resemble each other).<ref name="GS96" />
This heuristic is used because it is an easy computation.<ref name="tk82" /> The problem is that people overestimate its ability to accurately predict the likelihood of an event.<ref name=FortuneGoodie2012>{{cite journal|last1=Fortune|first1=Erica E.|last2=Goodie|first2=Adam S.|title=Cognitive distortions as a component and treatment focus of pathological gambling: A review|journal=Psychology of Addictive Behaviors|volume=26|issue=2|year=2012|pages=298–310|doi=10.1037/a0026422|pmid=22121918}}</ref> Thus, it can result in [[base rate fallacy|neglect of relevant base rates]] and other [[cognitive bias]]es.{{sfn|Tversky|Kahneman|1974}}<ref name="NisbettRoss1980">{{cite book|last1=Nisbett|first1=Richard E.|last2=Ross|first2=Lee|title=Human inference: strategies and shortcomings of social judgment|url=https://archive.org/details/humaninferencest0000nisb|url-access=registration|year=1980|publisher=Prentice-Hall|isbn=978-0-13-445073-5|pages=[https://archive.org/details/humaninferencest0000nisb/page/115 115]–118}}</ref>