{"id":15751,"date":"2020-09-29T13:45:00","date_gmt":"2020-09-29T17:45:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/?p=15751"},"modified":"2020-10-12T13:31:32","modified_gmt":"2020-10-12T17:31:32","slug":"the-representativeness-heuristic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/the-representativeness-heuristic\/","title":{"rendered":"The Representativeness Heuristic: Using Stereotypes"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>What is the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/representative-heuristic-example\/\">representativeness heuristic<\/a>? How does it affect <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/integrative-decision-making\/\">decision making<\/a>?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The representativeness heuristic is a bias that comes from trying to understand information by categorizing. The problem arises from stereotyping in these situations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Read on to understand the representativeness heuristic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<!--more-->\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">The Representativeness Heuristic<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>The third heuristic Tversky and Kahneman identify is the representativeness heuristic, although it might be better termed the \u201csimilarity\u201d heuristic. <strong>We use this heuristic when we categorize a phenomenon based on how similar it is to the <em>stereotype<\/em> of some category<\/strong>.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A simple example concerns our categorization of people based on their appearance. If we come across a diminutive white-haired man wearing glasses and a corduroy blazer and carrying a briefcase, we\u2019re more likely to think \u201cprofessor\u201d than we are \u201cprofessional basketball player.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>However, our bias toward \u201crepresentativeness\u201d becomes dangerous when we confront random processes<\/strong>. We tend to expect random processes to conform to our <em>idea <\/em>of randomness\u2014as producing unpatterned, impossible-to-predict outcomes. Unfortunately, random processes, especially in the short run, can <em>appear to have causal or predictable results<\/em>. That means, again because of the \u201crepresentativeness\u201d heuristic,<strong> we ascribe those results to some particular cause rather than chance<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Representative Bias Example<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>A classic representative bias example of humans misinterpreting randomness is sports fans\u2019 notion of the \u201chot hand.\u201d When, say, a basketball player makes a shot\u2014or even better, a number of shots in a row\u2014fans believe he or she is more likely to make the next shot than if he or she had missed. The idea is that shooters get \u201chot,\u201d and thus should be passed the ball more frequently.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>However, upon careful statistical analysis, the \u201chot hand\u201d proves not to exist<\/strong>\u2014a shooter\u2019s probability of making his or her next shot is the same <em>regardless of the result of the previous shot. <\/em>We simply <em>believe <\/em>the \u201chot\u201d shooter is more likely to make the next shot because of the representativeness heuristic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Whereas exhibiting a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/cognitive-bias-definition\/\">cognitive bias<\/a> in sports is relatively harmless, exhibiting one in the world of disease control can cause panic and wasted resources. For example, American public health officials receive more than 1,000 reports of so-called \u201ccancer clusters\u201d each year. (A \u201ccancer cluster\u201d is a sudden incidence of cancer diagnoses over a short period of time and in a limited area.) The fear is that environmental (or some other) factors are causing the uptick in cancer. However, in the vast majority of cases<strong>, the sudden increase in cancer is completely random\u2014a chance fluctuation bound to occur in a population of 300 million.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>What is the representativeness heuristic? How does it affect decision making? The representativeness heuristic is a bias that comes from trying to understand information by categorizing. The problem arises from stereotyping in these situations. Read on to understand the representativeness heuristic.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":15965,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,24],"tags":[132],"class_list":["post-15751","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-psychology","category-society","tag-nudge","","tg-column-two"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v24.3 (Yoast SEO v24.3) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>The Representativeness Heuristic: Using Stereotypes - Shortform Books<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"If you don&#039;t understand something, you might compare it to similar things you know. But the representativeness heuristic may lead to bias.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/the-representativeness-heuristic\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Representativeness Heuristic: Using Stereotypes\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"If you don&#039;t understand something, you might compare it to similar things you know. But the representativeness heuristic may lead to bias.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/the-representativeness-heuristic\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Shortform Books\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2020-09-29T17:45:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2020-10-12T17:31:32+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/wordpress.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/Nudge-representativeness-scaled.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"2560\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"1707\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Rina Shah\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Rina Shah\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/the-representativeness-heuristic\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/the-representativeness-heuristic\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Rina Shah\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/d07435826f13a8f422d5d333dceac287\"},\"headline\":\"The Representativeness Heuristic: Using Stereotypes\",\"datePublished\":\"2020-09-29T17:45:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2020-10-12T17:31:32+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/the-representativeness-heuristic\/\"},\"wordCount\":428,\"commentCount\":0,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/the-representativeness-heuristic\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/Nudge-representativeness-scaled.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Nudge\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Psychology\",\"Society\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/the-representativeness-heuristic\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/the-representativeness-heuristic\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/the-representativeness-heuristic\/\",\"name\":\"The Representativeness Heuristic: Using Stereotypes - Shortform Books\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/the-representativeness-heuristic\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/the-representativeness-heuristic\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/Nudge-representativeness-scaled.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2020-09-29T17:45:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2020-10-12T17:31:32+00:00\",\"description\":\"If you don't understand something, you might compare it to similar things you know. 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