Reasoning with base rates is routine, relatively effortless, and context dependent.

We tested models of base rate "neglect" using a novel paradigm. Participants (N = 62) judged the probability that a hypothetical person belonged to one of two categories (e.g., nurse/doctor) on the basis of either a personality description alone (NoBR) or the personality description and a base rate probability (BR). When base rates and descriptions were congruent, judgments in the BR condition were higher and more uniform than those in the NoBR condition. In contrast, base rates had a polarizing effect on judgments when they were incongruent with the descriptions, such that estimates were either consistent with the base rates or discrepant with them. These data suggest that the form of base rate use (i.e., whether base rates will be integrated with diagnostic information) is context dependent. In addition, judgments made under instructions to respond intuitively were influenced by the base rates and took the same length of time in the two conditions. These data suggest that the use of base rates is routine and effortless and that base rate "neglect" is really a mixture of two strategies, one that is informed primarily by the base rate and the other by the personality description.