The significance as an extension of representativeness heuristic. Two examples

Abstract

Two problems designed by Tversky and Kahneman (1973 and 1982) were administered to identify the representativeness heuristic. One of the problems, referred to as the conjunction fallacy (PFC), provides a description of a fictional character who must choose the more likely of two options: one referring to a single event and the other to the conjunction of that event and another. Qualitative information presented induces choice not altogether in keeping with probabilistic rules. The other problem (PP) requires assigning degrees of likelihood to two professions for one single fictional character by means of relevant qualitative and quantitative information. Objective: This study assesses the effect of meaning on the answers provided to the problems. Meaning is hypothesized to outweigh the representativeness heuristic and to be strongly linked to semantic and linguistic problem presentation and the information provided. It is also postulated that PFC induces the use of meaning more heavily than PP. Method: The sample was selected on accessibility grounds and consisted of young people entering national universities in the Greater Buenos Aires, coming from middle-income public and private high schools and without previous training in probability. Results and discussion: The difference found between the proportion of responses attributed to meaning between PFC (94%) and PP (77%) is consistent with the hypotheses.