On the Psychology of Prediction¶
Kahneman, D., & Tversky, A. (1973). On the Psychology of Prediction. Psychological Review, 80(4), 237-251.
Cited by¶
7 citations across 7 artifacts.
Each citation links to the sentence it supports in the citing article.
Primes¶
- Relevance Substitution
- The evaluative target is a hard question — "what is the probability that this described person is a librarian rather than a farmer?" — whose correct evaluation runs through a relevant inference channel (base rates for the two occupations, combined with diagnostic evidence).
This sourceDemonstrates the Tom-W / base-rate problem where representativeness (similarity-to-stereotype) substitutes for base-rate-weighted probability and base rates are neglected.
- The evaluative target is a hard question — "what is the probability that this described person is a librarian rather than a farmer?" — whose correct evaluation runs through a relevant inference channel (base rates for the two occupations, combined with diagnostic evidence).
Domain-specific¶
- Base Rate Fallacy
- The proximate mechanism is representativeness (Kahneman and Tversky)
This sourceThe paper proposing that intuitive predictions follow representativeness and are therefore insensitive to the prior probability of outcomes.
SupportedVerified against the source
- The proximate mechanism is representativeness (Kahneman and Tversky)
Mechanisms¶
- Base-Rate Alternative Prompt
- Its strength is that it directly counters base-rate neglect — the well-documented tendency to let a representative, vivid story crowd out the common one whose prior probability is far higher.
This sourceShows that representative personality descriptions can dominate category predictions while explicit prior probabilities, even strongly unequal base rates, have little effect.
- Its strength is that it directly counters base-rate neglect — the well-documented tendency to let a representative, vivid story crowd out the common one whose prior probability is far higher.
- Bayesian Diagnosis
- The classic misuse is base-rate neglect — reading the test's accuracy as if it were the probability of the condition and ignoring how rare the condition is
This sourceShows that intuitive predictions can be largely insensitive to prior outcome probabilities—the pattern known as base-rate neglect.
- The classic misuse is base-rate neglect — reading the test's accuracy as if it were the probability of the condition and ignoring how rare the condition is
- Bayesian Risk Update
- Ironically, a sloppy application can commit the very base-rate neglect it exists to correct, by letting a dramatic datum swamp a low prevalence.
This sourceShows that salient individuating descriptions can dominate stated base rates in intuitive prediction.
- Ironically, a sloppy application can commit the very base-rate neglect it exists to correct, by letting a dramatic datum swamp a low prevalence.
- Bayesian-Style Update Session
- Fold in the base rate. Anchor on how common the belief's truth is at baseline, guarding against base-rate neglect
This sourceDocuments base-rate neglect as intuitive prediction that is insensitive to prior probabilities.
- Fold in the base rate. Anchor on how common the belief's truth is at baseline, guarding against base-rate neglect
- Canary or Honeytoken Telemetry
- Canary trips are rare events among enormous benign traffic, and the base-rate fallacy makes it tempting to over-read a lone hit as proof of a widespread campaign — or, conversely, to let the silence of untripped canaries stand in for a harm picture they were never designed to provide.
This sourceShows how base-rate neglect can make a salient individual signal seem stronger than its prior prevalence warrants.
- Canary trips are rare events among enormous benign traffic, and the base-rate fallacy makes it tempting to over-read a lone hit as proof of a widespread campaign — or, conversely, to let the silence of untripped canaries stand in for a harm picture they were never designed to provide.
Verification¶
Does it exist? Confirmed. This work's DOI resolves to a registered record, which fixes its identity. That is all it fixes.
Does it back the claim? Read against the text for 1 of 7 citations: 1 supported. Each verdict is shown under its citation below, with what in the work backs the sentence.
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