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Why do people believe the 6th coin toss will be heads if the 5 prior were tails?

a) sunk cost fallacy
b) gambler's fallacy
c) conjunction fallacy
d) representativeness heuristice
e) law of large numbers

User Dif
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1 Answer

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Final answer:

The belief that the 6th coin toss will be heading if the 5 prior were tails is an example of the gambler's fallacy. Each coin toss is statistically independent and the outcome of one toss does not affect the next toss.

Step-by-step explanation:

The belief that the 6th coin toss will be heading if the 5 prior tosses were tails is an example of the gambler's fallacy. The gambler's fallacy is the faulty reasoning that future chance events are more likely to occur if they have not happened recently. In reality, each coin toss is statistically independent, and the outcome of one toss does not affect the next toss.

To further explain this concept, let's say we flip a fair coin. The probability of getting heads or tails on each toss is 0.5 or 50%. This probability remains the same regardless of the outcomes of previous tosses. Therefore, believing that the 6th coin toss will be heads just because the previous 5 were tails is a fallacy.

User Edward Aung
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