DANTES Subject Standardized Tests (DSST) Practice Exam

The representativeness heuristic is a mental shortcut used to estimate the probability of an event by comparing it to an existing mental prototype or stereotype. When people rely on this heuristic, they tend to judge the likelihood of an event based on how much it resembles a typical case or stereotype, rather than using statistical reasoning or actual probabilities. This often leads to biases in decision-making.

For example, someone might assume that a well-dressed individual is more likely to be a business executive than a factory worker, purely based on the stereotype of what a business executive looks like. This bias can lead to misjudging the actual probabilities involved since it overlooks relevant statistical information, such as the number of business executives compared to factory workers in the population.

The other options address different cognitive biases or heuristics. Focusing on average performance relates to skewed assessments based on central tendencies, pursuing collective agreement without regard to accuracy concerns the bandwagon effect, and reevaluating past decisions relates to hindsight bias. While these are all forms of cognitive biases, they do not specifically illustrate the workings of the representativeness heuristic.