Our Use of the Availability Heuristic Highlights a Basic Principle

question 5

Multiple Choice

Our use of the availability heuristic highlights a basic principle of social thinking.This principle holds that:

• A)people are slow to deduce particular instances from a general truth.
• B)people are slow to infer general truth from a vivid instance.
• C)people are quick to deduce particular instances from a general truth.
• D)people are very accurate to explain the vivid instances based on general truth.

---

Definitions:

Sample Statistic

A numerical measurement describing some characteristic of a sample, such as the mean or variance.

Sample Mean

The mean of a collection of numbers, determined by summing all the numbers in the set and then dividing by the count of the numbers.

Population Mean

The average of a set of characteristics (such as age, weight) of every member of a population.

Consistent Estimator

A statistical property of an estimator indicating that as the sample size grows, the estimator converges in probability to the parameter being estimated.