Representativeness is a heuristic, or tool, that individuals apply when processing information during the selection process, indicating their tendency to make probability judgments using stereotypes and familiar situations. It is, in fact, a simple and quick way to divide people into categories.
Representativeness is a process in which it is calculated to what extent a specific fact resembles a known stereotype. In this Psychology-Online article we are going to discover together what is representativeness bias in the psychological discipline, what it consists of, the effects of representativeness bias and examples of it.
What is representativeness in psychology
Representativeness in psychology refers to when, to judge something, it is intuitively compared with the previously defined mental representation known as a category. Representativeness is a reasonable guide to realitybut it is not always valid, since it does not consider important information.
The information granted more important is the frequency with which some events or patterns of characteristics occur in general. Instant feedback to decide if someone or something fits a category, such as deciding that Mario is a librarian instead of a truck driver because he represents the first image better than the second.
Discover what other cognitive biases exist in the following article: .
What does representativeness bias consist of?
The representativeness heuristic is based on the relevance of a person’s attributes, considered as a criterion for considering the same person as a member of a certain category. In other words, it is the tendency to judge a person’s membership in a category to the extent that that person embodies the prototype of that category.
Kahneman and Tversky have carried out most of the research on the representativeness heuristic that has led to the study of theories about judgment distortions. Let’s look at an example to understand it:
- Linda, 31 years old, single, sincere and intelligent, studied philosophy. As a student she was very involved in social and discrimination problems and participated in anti-nuclear demonstrations. Based on this description, it is more likely that Linda is a bank teller or that Linda is a bank teller and feminist activist.
Most people think the second solution is the most likely, in part because Linda represents her image as a feminist well; but is it more likely that Linda is a bank teller and a feminist or just a bank teller (feminist or not)? The conjunction of two events cannot be more probable than one of the two.
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Effects of representativeness bias
This representativeness heuristic helps people quickly decide which category to place others into. Essentially, it is a reverse stereotyping process. Let’s look at the difference between stereotyping and representativeness:
- When a is activated, a person is placed in a particular social category and is then inferred to possess the characteristics associated with that category of people.
- When relying on the representativeness heuristic, this process is reversed, since a person is considered to possess some characteristics that are associated with a social category, it follows that that person is a member of that category.
Therefore, representativeness bias can lead to downplaying other important information. Probability judgments are made on the basis of similarity of an object, event or person with respect to the reference category and, in doing this reasoning, sometimes neither the champion’s numbers nor the rules of probability are taken into consideration.
Examples of representativeness bias
To better understand what cognitive representativeness bias consists of, let’s look at some examples of it.
Oregon Student Example
Students at the University of Oregon (1984) were told that a group of psychologists had interviewed a sample of 30 engineers and 70 lawyers, summarizing their impressions into concise descriptions. The following description was drawn randomly from the mixed sample:
- Twice divorced, Frank spends most of his free time hanging out in bars. His conversations often center on his regret at having tried to follow in the footsteps of his esteemed father. The long hours spent in hard academic work would have been better spent learning to be less litigious with others. Question: What is the probability that Frank is a lawyer instead of an engineer?
More than 80% of the students assumed he was a lawyer. To what extent have the estimates been modified when the description was given to another group, who were told that 70% of the sample were engineers? Not even a little. The students did not take into account the percentage of lawyers and engineers. In their minds Frank was more representative than the lawyers and that was all that mattered.
Betting example
Let’s look at another example of representativeness bias. The representativeness heuristic is the direct cause of the errors made by bettors. Errors that led to coining the definition of gambler’s fallacy. Players who play roulette think, for example, that if red has come up several consecutive times, for example, about 10, then it is inevitable that black will come up on the next play.
Likewise, lottery players may think that a number that hasn’t been drawn in a long time is more likely than a number that has been drawn recently. In reality, in both cases they are extractions with reinsertion. With each extraction, Any outcome will always have the same probability of occurring..
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Bibliography
- Myers, D. G. (2009). Social Psychology. Milan: McGraw-Hill.