Final answer:
The Gambler's fallacy is the belief that past events influence the likelihood of future independent events, which is incorrect since each event is independent. This fallacy is distinct from the availability heuristic, which is our tendency to make decisions based on what can be easily remembered, and the anchoring bias, which is the initial information that heavily influences our subsequent judgments.The correct option is c.
Step-by-step explanation:
The belief that the probability of an event is influenced by its past history is known as the Gambler's fallacy. This cognitive bias is the reasoning that if a chance event has happened less frequently in the recent past, it will more likely happen in the near future, or vice versa. This is incorrect because each event is independent, especially in contexts like flipping a coin or rolling a die, where the odds do not change regardless of past outcomes.
Heuristics are mental shortcuts that simplify decision making. The availability heuristic causes people to believe that if something can be recalled easily, it must be important or more likely to happen. The anchoring bias refers to our tendency to rely heavily upon the first piece of information we receive (the "anchor"), while making subsequent judgments or decisions.
The correct answer to the originally posed question, which refers to a scenario where the belief in the likelihood of an event is mistakenly thought to be influenced by past occurrences, is the Gambler's fallacy (c).