Which heuristic involves judging something according to our prototypes?

The representative heuristic is the cognitive shortcut that involves judging the likelihood of something based on how well it matches our existing prototypes or mental representations of a category. This means that when we encounter new information, we evaluate it against the typical characteristics or examples we have stored in our memory.

For instance, if someone meets a person who is introverted, wears glasses, and enjoys reading, they might assume that this person is a librarian rather than a farmer, because the traits align more closely with the prototype of a librarian than those of a farmer. This heuristic simplifies decision-making by allowing us to quickly categorize information based on our experiences and expectations.

The other options, although relevant to cognitive psychology, do not specifically relate to judging things based on prototypes. The availability heuristic relies on information that is most readily retrievable from memory, self-serving bias refers to the tendency to attribute successes to ourselves and failures to external factors, and framing deals with how the presentation of information influences decision-making. All these methods illustrate different aspects of human cognition, but they do not involve the direct comparison to prototypes that the representative heuristic does.