Representativeness error
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Chapter 8 endnote 12, from How Emotions are Made: The Secret Life of the Brain by Lisa Feldman Barrett.
Some context is:
Darwin also wrote that emotional imbalance could cause frizzy hair. [...] This is a great example of the representativeness error
Darwin's wrote, “persistently rough condition of the hair in many insane patients [is attributed] in part to their minds being always somewhat disturbed.”[1] To me, this is a great example of the representativeness error, a mental shortcut first described by psychologists Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman in the 1970s.[2] The error goes like this:
- Observe a characteristic, such as rough hair.
- Fit it to a stereotype, such as that of a "crazy person."
- Assume that the probability of one makes the other more likely. (Mad scientist, anyone?)
The error may also be applied to any two events that seem similar or thematically linked.