Juliana used to enjoy eating chicken, but since she has seen all the headlines about people becoming ill from eating chicken, she has decided she will never eat chicken again. In this case, Juliana's decision to stop eating chicken may have been influenced by
A) the representativeness heuristic.
B) the conjunction fallacy.
C) the overconfidence effect.
D) the availability heuristic.

Question

Quizplus · Accepted Answer

Juliana's decision appears to have been influenced by the availability heuristic, as she is basing her decision on the examples of people becoming ill from eating chicken that are readily available in the news headlines. The other options are less applicable in this scenario - the representativeness heuristic involves judging the likelihood of an event based on how closely it matches a particular prototype (which doesn't seem to be at play here), the conjunction fallacy involves incorrectly assuming that multiple events occurring together are more likely than a single event (which isn't relevant to this situation), and the overconfidence effect involves overestimating one's own abilities (which doesn't apply to this decision about whether or not to eat chicken).

Juliana Used to Enjoy Eating Chicken, but Since She Has