Heuristics

A heuristic is a mental shortcut that allows people to solve problems and make judgments quickly and efficiently. These rule-of-thumb strategies shorten decision-making time and allow people to function without constantly stopping to think about their next course of action. Heuristics are helpful in many situations, but they can also lead to cognitive biases.

Heuristics play important roles in both problem-solving and decision-making.

Types of Heuristics

• Availability

  There are all kinds of mental shortcuts, but a common one involves relying on information that comes to mind quickly. This is known as "availability." Faced with the need for an immediate decision, the availability heuristic allows people to quickly arrive at a conclusion.

• Representative

  When we make decisions based on representativeness, we may be likely to make more errors by overestimating the likelihood that something will occur. Just because an event or object is representative does not mean its occurrence is more probable.

• Affect

  The affect heuristic involves making choices that are influenced by the emotions that an individual is experiencing at that moment. For example, research has shown that people are more likely to see decisions as having benefits and lower risks when they are in a positive mood.

Heuristics can also contribute to things such as stereotypes and prejudice.

Just because something has worked in the past does not mean that it will work again, and relying on an existing heuristic can make it difficult to see alternative solutions or come up with new ideas.

Amygdala hijjack