PEDIATRICS Vol. 83 No. 3 March 1989, pp. A90
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BELIEF IN THE LAW OF SMALL NUMBERS

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People have erroneous intuitions about the laws of chance. In particular, they regard a sample randomly drawn from a population as highly representative, that is, similar to the population in all essential characteristics. The prevalence of the belief and its unfortunate consequence for psychological research are illustrated by the responses of professional psychologists to a questionnaire concerning research decisions.