Question

Dan recently watched a television program about rabies and those animals that are typically carriers of the disease. Last night, when he stepped outside to call his cat, he saw a raccoon waddling across his yard. The animal acted strangely and came straight toward him. Dan immediately decided it must have rabies. He made his decision based onA) exemplars.
B) an algorithm.
C) a representativeness heuristic.
D) an availability heuristic.

Answer 1

Answer:

The correct answer is: D. an availability heuristic

Explanation:

The heuristic is a mental process we use in problem resolution and taking decisions in a short time -mental shortcuts-, although it is not always perfect and has limitations or errors. It is commonly based on prior experiences.

According to this example, Dan is basing his decision on Availability Heuristic, because he recently had watched a television program about rabies so he had that information at the top of his mind, it was recent. That is why he immediately associated the information with what he saw and decided the animal was infected.

Unlike representativeness heuristic wich is used to make judgments about the probability of something; it considers information from different sources and makes comparisons in order to find similarities and then make a decision.