Define each of the following mental shortcuts and explain why each may be inaccurate: (1) the availability heuristic; (2) the representativeness heuristic
What will be an ideal response?
Answer: The availability heuristic is a mental shortcut whereby people base their judgments on the ease with which they can bring something to mind; unfortunately, what comes most readily to mind may not be typical, due to limited experience or biased memory processes. The representativeness heuristic is a mental shortcut whereby people classify something based on how well it represents the typical case; unfortunately, people often underutilize base rate information in favor of deciding how typical an individual case is of the overall category.
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