ABSTRACT
How do people actually make probability judgments? How do they process the information available to them to reach a singular estimate of what is likely to happen? The dominant approach to this question is provided by Kahneman and Tversky in their ‘Heuristics and Biases’ programme (e.g., Kahneman et al., 1982). They claim that rather than reason on the basis of the formal rules of probability, people often use simplifying or shortcut heuristics to reach a probability judgment. Moreover, while these heuristics are well adapted to specific information processing tasks, they can lead to systematic biases when used in inappropriate contexts.
