Final answer:
The representative heuristic is a cognitive bias that influences people's belief about the likelihood that something belongs to a given category based on the extent to which it shares characteristics with the stereotypical members of that category.
Step-by-step explanation:
The representative heuristic is a cognitive bias that influences people's belief about the likelihood that something belongs to a given category based on the extent to which it shares characteristics with the stereotypical members of that category. In other words, people tend to judge the probability of an event or object based on how closely it resembles their mental image of what is typical for that category. For example, if someone sees a tall person wearing a basketball jersey, they might assume that person is a basketball player because it fits the stereotype of basketball players being tall.