When making judgement or decision we often use heuristics, also known short cut. For example when I think of a model, I think of tall, slim, beautiful person with an eye for fashion. Not to say am wrong or anything but then I don't take into account that a person could attribute all those things and not be a model. When making such judgement we use what is known as representative heuristics, where we look for similarities, most common and most frequent. We attach a high level of importance to certain information which lead us to these judgments. In my case I have attached the importance to tall, slim, beautiful and eye for fashion but in this modern world where people are very weight conscious and always following trend these kind of attribute could fit anyone besides a model. When I don't take into account the proportion of people who are like that as opposed to something else I make what is known as the base rate neglect.
Talking about the attachment of importance to certain things bring me my next point where people often assume that having success on a win will show having success on the next. For example in the casino when people first win, most people tend to think that if they've won then the would probably win in the second round. The russian roulette is based on randomness and having a success in first round does not predict having a success in a second round.
Actually, people's thinking about the casino is slightly different from the example about basketball players. In the casino, people tend to treat the roulette wheel (or other gambling device) as though it has a memory. Thus, over short sequences of spins they think that red and black numbers will tend to balance out. Of course, over long runs they do balance out, but in short sequences you often get a string of red outcomes or a string of black outcomes. So if you've just had a red number come up twice, then people are likely to bet that a black number comes up next. This is what's called "The Gambler's Fallacy". However, the probability of red vs black is 50-50, no different from on any other trial.
ReplyDeleteIn the case of the basketball players, people appreciate that there is skill involved, so they think that if you've just scored a couple of times then you'll probably be successful on your next attempt at basket. But even basketball is beset by a lot of uncertainty, and it turns out that you can't predict the success of the next shot on the basis of the previous (even though some players may be more skilled than others).