What describes the rule of thumb where decisions are made by associating a person or situation with a similar past experience?

The concept referred to in the question is well encapsulated by the representativeness heuristic. This cognitive shortcut is employed when individuals make judgments about the probability of an event or the characteristics of a person based on how closely they resemble a typical example from their past experiences. By using past experiences as a guiding metric, people simplify complex decision-making processes.

For instance, if someone encounters a new candidate for a job and they remind the interviewer of a previous successful candidate, the interviewer may unconsciously assume that the new candidate possesses the same positive attributes as the prior one. This reliance on stereotypes and similarities can lead to swift decision-making; however, it may also result in overlooking critical differences and important information.

Other options such as the availability heuristic relate to the ease of recalling information from memory rather than drawing similarities from different instances. Satisficing refers to choosing an option that meets acceptable criteria rather than the best possible one, and projection bias entails assuming that others share the same beliefs and behaviors as oneself. None of these explanations align with the underlying concept of assessing similarity based on past experiences, making the representativeness heuristic the correct choice for this question.