8.5 Heuristics and Decision Making

These flashcards cover key concepts related to heuristics, decision-making, and cognitive biases discussed in the lecture.

Heuristics

Mental shortcuts or rules of thumb that simplify decision making and problem solving.

Representative Heuristic

A mental shortcut where people judge the likelihood of an event based on how closely it resembles a typical example.

Conjunction Fallacy

The error of assuming that conjunctions are more probable than individual components.

Law of Small Numbers

The mistaken belief that small samples must resemble the population from which they are drawn.

Gambler's Fallacy

The belief that previous independent events affect future probabilities in games of chance.

Base Rate Neglect

The tendency to ignore the base rate (general information) when making decisions based on individual case descriptions.

Political Feminist Stereotype

Commonly held beliefs about feminists that influence decision-making based on specific descriptors.

Monte Carlo Casino Incident

A famous gambling event where players lost money betting on red due to the misconception that black outcomes must be balanced by red.

Probability

The likelihood of a particular outcome occurring.

Venn Diagram

A diagram that shows all possible logical relations between a finite collection of different sets.