Decision-Making & Reasoning Topics

The tendency to overestimate the likelihood of events that are easily recalled from memory, often because they are vivid, recent, or emotionally charged.

In this cognitive bias, people tend to overestimate the probability of two events happening together (conjunction) compared to one of those events happening alone.

When determining the probability of an event, people rely on the ease with which examples or instances come to mind. This often leads to overestimation of the likelihood of events that are more memorable or easily accessible.

The conjunction fallacy is when we incorrectly assume that two specific events are more likely than one of those events happening alone, even if the more specific event is a subset of the less specific one.

A study illustrating the availability heuristic, where participants were presented with a list of names, some famous and others not. They later overestimated the frequency of the gender represented by more famous names.

The tendency to judge the probability of an event based on how readily examples come to mind, without considering other relevant information or statistical probabilities.

An example of the conjunction fallacy, where participants were asked to estimate the number of words ending in "ing" versus words ending in "n" within a novel. They overestimated words ending in "ing", even though "n" is a more frequent ending.

The conjunction fallacy is a common cognitive bias where we mistakenly believe that two events happening together are more likely than either one happening alone. It reflects our tendency to overestimate the probability of specific events.

A heuristic where people judge the probability of an event based on how representative it is of a particular category.

A cognitive bias where people ignore base rate information and rely on representativeness to make judgments.

The tendency to focus on the similarity between a sample and a population, an instance and a category, or an act and an actor.

The probability of something being true, given that it fits a certain description.

A measure of how often something occurs in a population.

Information about the frequency of an event or characteristic in a population.

The perceived similarity between a sample and its potential population.

A cognitive strategy that relies on readily available examples rather than systematic analysis.

The belief that a long streak of random events makes a specific outcome less likely in the future.

The misconception that random sequences tend to alternate more frequently than they actually do, leading to the belief that a run of one outcome is more likely to be followed by the opposite outcome.

The tendency for people to make judgments based on their past experiences, even if those experiences are not statistically relevant.

The idea that, due to the law of averages, a long streak of one outcome makes the opposite outcome more likely in future trials.

A cognitive bias where people tend to overestimate the likelihood of events that are easily recalled from memory, often due to their vividness, recency, or emotional charge.

When making judgments about a person's profession, people tend to overemphasize how representative they are of their profession and underestimate the base rate of how common that profession is.

A cognitive strategy that involves starting with an initial estimate (anchor) and then adjusting it based on additional information.

A type of cognitive bias where individuals are influenced by the initial value (anchor) they are given, even when that value is arbitrary or irrelevant.

This approach suggests that people often make decisions that are good enough for the situation, rather than striving for objectively optimal solutions.

The tendency to use the information available to us, even if it's not statistically accurate, when making judgments about probabilities.