Cognitive Scaffold

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MENTAL MODEL · M7778

Representativeness Heuristic / Representativeness Calibration

Representativeness Heuristic / Representativeness Calibration
Learn & MetacognitionHigh supportCognitive Psychology
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Updated 2026-08-10

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INTRODUCTION

English translation pending.

CORE DEFINITION

The representativeness heuristic is the tendency to estimate category membership or probability from the degree of similarity between a case and a typical member of that category. The core proposition, established by Kahneman and Tversky, is that this similarity judgment substitutes for a frequency judgment and thereby ignores base rates, sample size, and the reliability of the evidence. The key qualification is that resemblance is not evidence of membership, so the heuristic must be corrected rather than trusted.

SCAFFOLDING EFFECT

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Reduce cognitive load

- Resemblance warning: Treat a judgment based on looking alike as a hypothesis that still needs a base rate. - Base rate check: Look up the prior frequency before accepting the similarity-based answer. - Bayesian correction: Update the intuitive estimate with sample size and evidence reliability.

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Anchor fast decisions

Faced with a classification or probability question, the mind retrieves a typical example and compares the case against it, then answers on the strength of the match. Because this substitution happens automatically, base rates and sample sizes never enter the calculation, so confident similarity judgments can be systematically wrong in exactly the situations where the prior matters most.

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Source support: Explicit

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    en.wikipedia.orghttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Representativeness_heuristicZH · Explicit
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