During history class,one of the students rolled a baseball on the floor toward the front of the classroom.Ms.Durango saw the rolling ball as she turned from the front marker board.She saw the direction from which the ball rolled,determined that she needed to identify the disruptive student immediately,and quickly called the name of the only boy sitting on that row.Her identification was not correct.What probably hindered her from solving the problem of identifying the disruptive student?
A)Representativeness heuristic
B)Functional fixedness
C)Response set
D)Analysis paralysis

Question

Quizplus · Accepted Answer

Ms. Durango likely relied on the representativeness heuristic, in which an individual judges the likelihood of an event based on how well it matches a typical example or prototype. In this case, she identified the boy on that row as the most likely culprit because he fit the prototype of a student who might roll a ball in class. However, this heuristic can lead to errors because it ignores base rates and other relevant information. In this case, Ms. Durango did not consider other factors that could have contributed to the ball rolling or other students who may have been involved.

During History Class,one of the Students Rolled a Baseball on the Floor