Heuristics Principles

Heuristic Principles

In Activity #1A, I had to determine if Linda was a bank teller or a feminist bank teller based on a number of items used to describe her. I used the cancellation principle (Plous, 1993, p. 81) to rule out "bank teller" as a possibility since I did not have enough information to make that determination. This left alternative B. By using representativeness heuristics (Watson, A. et al, 1998), I framed an opinion that someone active in the feminist movement could very well have a similar background to Linda. My rationale fell prey to conjunction fallacy, in that it is less probable that Linda is both a bank teller and a feminist than just a bank teller or just a feminist (Hertwig & Gigerenzer, 1999, p. 275).

Using representative heuristics again in Activity #1B, I chose the third option, no preference. I figured there still was a 50/50 chance that the unbiased coin would land on either heads or tails. Anyone that chose Heads would have been a victim to "the hot hand," in that they were predicting a continuation of the random sequence of coin tosses to land on Heads. Anyone that chose Tails would have been a victim of "gambler's fallacy," in that they were predicting a reversal of the random sequence of coin tosses to land on Tails (Hertwig & Gigerenzer, 1999, p. 275).

In Activity #2A, I chose the second option. Its sequence looked a bit more random than the first option. People that chose the first options were victims of "the hot hand" or "gambler's fallacy" (Hertwig & Gigernezer, 1999, p. 275).

In Girl Scouts I learned that a piece of paper is virtually impossible to fold more than 8 times due to its thickness and number of layers (128) of that folded-up piece of paper. When Activity #2B asked how thick I thought a piece of paper would be if folded 100 times, I guessed a trillion inches. I knew it would be thick, but I never dreamed its thickness could take me to the sun and back 800 billion times! This question is an exercise in heuristics anchoring, whereas people "make value estimates by starting from an initial reference value (anchor) and adjusting from this reference point as evidence is assimilated" (Diaz, 1997, p. 57).

Activity #2C is another example of anchoring. I thought it take 183 people for there to be a 50% chance that at least two would share the same birthday. Surprisingly, my ex-husband and I share the same birthday, and we met in a group of approx. 75. Based on my own experience, I should have known that the number would be smaller than 183.

In Activity #3A & B, I chose Structure A as