Representativeness heuristic: definition, examples and practical tips

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Picture this: A new employee comes in who looks exactly like your most successful salesperson ever. You immediately predict he's going to be a top performer. Or a potential client who looks like your ideal target - you're already convinced of a deal. But beware: your brain is playing you a clever game here! Recognize this? That intuitive first impression you immediately form about new employees, clients or business opportunities? Then this article is a must-read. We're going to explain to you exactly how this india mailing list unconscious thinking strategy works, the risks involved, and - more importantly - how you can cleverly deal with this natural tendency of your brain.

Want to improve your decision-making and prevent biases from undermining your business success? Read on!

What is the representativeness heuristic?
We base the probability that object or event A belongs to category B on the similarities or differences of A with B. This can lead to biases and errors of judgment (Kahneman & Tversky, 1974).

The representativeness heuristic is a biased judgment. When we need to estimate the likelihood of something happening or being like this, we will base this estimate on a similar thing that has happened or is known to have happened before. This is where stereotypes play a big role. We emphasize the similarities or differences with a stereotype in order to make a decision more quickly.



But instead of comparing with representative examples, we should be open to new, additional information to make the right decisions and not develop tunnel vision. Instead of superficial similarities, we should look at objective probabilities. After all, similarity to a particular stereotype says nothing at all about the probability of a particular outcome. Not everything always fits into a box or category. Sometimes no label fits and the stereotype actually creates a distorted picture.

The representativeness heuristic is also somewhat like van de gambler’s fallacy. Researchers even believe that the representativeness heuristic underlies several other mentale denkfouten staat.