Ch. 8. 4-5 - Problem Solving & Representative Heuristic

Conjunction fallacy

a mistaken belief that finding a specific member in 2 overlapping categories is more likely than finding any member of one of the larger, general categories

Representative Heuristic

• Making judgments of likelihood based on how well an example represents a specific represents a specific category – probability substituted for resemblance

• Law of small numbers

• gambler’s fallacy

Base-rate Neglect

-            Participants asked if someone is chosen at random from 70 lawyers and 30 engineers, what is their likely profession?

-            However, if given description of certain individuals, participants ignored base rate information and chose based on the descriptions

-            Decided based on whether the person resembles their conception of a lawyer or engineer, rather than using base-rate likelihood

Algorithms

strategies based on following a series of rules

ex of algorithims

using every single possible combo to figure out an anagram

Heuristics

strategies that rely on our prior experiences

ex of heuristics

looking both ways before crossing the street

Mental Set

-            Can result from rote learning during problem solving with no deeper understanding of problem developed

Functional Fixedness

-            Occurs when an individual can only think of an object’s most obvious function