Gambler's Fallacy" Affects Decision-Making"
by Steve Maas
A coin flip lands heads three times in a row. What are the odds that it will be heads on the next toss?
A rational decision-maker knows that they are 50-50. But it’s easy to succumb to the belief that streaks don’t occur by chance. This common misperception is known as the gambler’s fallacy. In “Decision-Making under the Gambler’s Fallacy: Evidence from Asylum Judges, Loan Officers, and Baseball Umpires,” Daniel Chen, Tobias J. Moskowitz and Kelly Shue found that in a number of different settings, individuals have a slight bias against deciding the same way in successive cases.
The researchers found, for example, that the odds that a judge rejects an asylum seeker are 3.3 percentage points higher if the judge has approved the previous case, all else being equal. They also noted that the likelihood that judges are influenced by a prior decision increases with the length of the sequence of positive or negative rulings and the similarity of the previous cases.
© NewsHour Productions LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Question
Use the passage to answer the question.
How does the rhetorical question in the opening paragraph advance the author’s purpose?
(1 point)
Responses
The author wants to introduce two opposing ideas for the reader to consider.
The author wants to introduce two opposing ideas for the reader to consider.
The question gets the reader invested in the author’s topic.
The question gets the reader invested in the author’s topic.
The author emphasizes the question they hope to answer over the course of the text.
The author emphasizes the question they hope to answer over the course of the text.
The question emphasizes a specific word the author wants the readers to notice.
The question emphasizes a specific word the author wants the readers to notice.
Remaining Attempts : 3
The correct answer is: The question gets the reader invested in the author’s topic.
By posing the rhetorical question about the odds of the next coin toss after three consecutive heads, the author engages the reader's curiosity and prompts them to think about the topic of the gambler's fallacy. This helps to generate interest and investment in the author's discussion of the topic.