In a prior post, I asked you to ponder the “Let’s Make a Deal” problem. For those of you who thought it through and answered correctly (without the Google-crutch), congratulations to you! Perhaps your quick mind could make you some money at the casinos. My simple explanation would be as follows:
You select door #1. The probability that the car is behind this door is 33 1/3%. When the goat is revealed behind door #3, the probability that your first choice was correct is still 33.3%. But because one of the options has been eliminated, changing to door #2 yields a probability of 66.7%.
If you are more like me, your ”gut” led you to the incorrect answer, and you refused to give up your original selection. This may be due to the fact that we assume that we have a 50/50 choice left, and since our initial selection is ”in hand”, we are somewhat programmed to avoid changing. Why do we view it as more painful to change and lose than to just lose?
