Question

Sabiha is left-handed, and prefers left-handed men. She is going to be introduced to Wilbur. Left- handers comprise about 10 percent of the population. She has been truthfully informed that Wilbur is either a left-handed Chinese psycholinguist or a used car salesman from the Midwestern region of the United States. If Sabiha makes good use of base rates, which of the following outcomes should she expect?
A) Wilbur is a left-handed Chinese psycholinguist.
B) Wilbur is a new car salesman from the Midwestern region of the U.S.
C) She has been misinformed about Wilbur's existence as a crude statistical prank.
D) Wilbur is a used car salesman from the Midwestern region of the U.S. who also happens to be left- handed.
E) Wilbur is a Midwestern left-handed Chinese psycholinguist who works as a used car salesman in his spare time.

Answer 1

Answer:

D) Wilbur is a used car salesman from the Midwestern region of the U.S. who also happens to be left- handed.                  

Explanation:

            Base rates are developed by the Bayes' Theorem. Base rates means to indicate the probability based on absence of any other information. It may be defined as the prior chance or the odds of a member to be of specified population who will have some basic characteristics based that we know nothing about the person apart from that he or she belongs to an examining population.

            In the context, Sahiba is going to meet Mr. Wilbur whom she has very little knowledge. But Sahiba is a left handed person and she likes left handed people. She is aware that there are around ten percent of left handers in the population. Now using her base rate knowledge, Sahiba expects that Wilbur to be lefft handed person and is working as a salesman of used car in the Midwestern region of U.S.

Hence the correct option is (D).