heuristics

Examples of heuristics in the following topics:

• Heuristics and Cognitive Biases

  • When solving problems or reasoning, people often make use of certain heuristics, or learning shortcuts.
  • There are several types of heuristics used to save time when drawing conclusions about large amounts of information, including availability, representativeness, and similarity heuristics.
  • The availability heuristic leads to people overestimating the occurrence of situations they are familiar with.
  • We rely on the similarity heuristic all the time when making decisions.
  • Explain the heuristics and cognitive biases that can impact a researcher's interpretation of data

• Groups

  • Heuristics are sometimes perceived to be legitimate assumptions about an individual and sometimes deemed illegitimate.
  • Legitimate heuristics tend to just be those that import positive generalizations to a particular person.
  • However, the same heuristic can function in negative ways; this is the underlying mechanism that enables stereotypes.
  • Both legitimate and illegitimate heuristics demonstrate how knowledge about one's group affiliations conveys perceived social knowledge about that individual.
  • Discuss how heuristics allow people to learn about people within a society based on group affiliation and give examples of both positive and negative heuristics

• Decision Making

  • Heuristics are simple rules of thumb that people often use to form judgments and make decisions; think of them as mental shortcuts.
  • When people estimate how likely or how frequent an event is on the basis of its availability, they are using the availability heuristic. 
  • When an infrequent event can be brought easily and vividly to mind, this heuristic overestimates its likelihood.
  • When people categorize things on the basis of representativeness, they are using the representativeness heuristic.
  • Anchoring and adjustment is a heuristic used in situations where people must estimate a number.

• Problem-Solving

  • The way we solve problems can be influenced by algorithms, heuristics, intuition, insight, confirmation bias, and functional fixedness.
  • We use heuristics when we accept information or strategies as 'good enough' for our needs, even though there may be a better method.
  • They are rules that are not necessarily understood, but promise an accurate solution - unlike a heuristic.
  • Some of these mental processes include functional fixedness, confirmation bias, insight and intuition phenomenology, heuristics, and algorithms.
  • Examine how algorithms, heuristics, intuition, insight, confirmation bias, and functional fixedness can influence judgment and decision making.

• Kohler and Insight Learning

  • Insight should not be confused with heuristics.
  • A heuristic is a mental shortcut that allows us to filter out overwhelming information and stimuli in order to make a judgement or decision.
  • Heuristics help us to reduce the cognitive burden of the decision-making process by examining a smaller percentage of the information.
  • While both insight and heuristics can be used for problem solving and information processing, a heuristic is a simplistic rule of thumb; it is habitual automatic thinking that frees us from complete and systematic processing of information.
  • While heuristics are gradually shaped by experience, insight is not.

• Problem Solving

  • Two of them, algorithms and heuristics, are of particularly great psychological importance.
  • A heuristic is a rule of thumb, a strategy, or a mental shortcut that generally works for solving a problem (particularly decision-making problems).
  • Unlike a heuristic, you are guaranteed to get the correct solution to the problem; however, an algorithm may not necessarily be the most efficient way of solving the problem.
  • The difference between an algorithm and a heuristic can be summed up in the example of trying to find a Starbucks (or some other national chain) in a city.
  • But a heuristic could simply be, "Well, usually they're at busy intersections; I'll just walk to the nearest busy intersection."

• Stereotypes in Everyday Life

  • Stereotypes are useful for the human brain because they operate as a heuristic or a cognitive mechanism to quickly gather, process, and synthesize information.
  • Therefore, we have heuristics to make the process more efficient.
  • In line with the reasoning that describes heuristics, distinguishing oneself from others is a cognitively necessary step; it allows us to develop a sense of identity.
  • Given the social and cognitive necessities of heuristics, the problem with stereotyping is not the existence of the cognitive function.

• Reasoning

  • We also use a variety of heuristics, or mental shortcuts, when reasoning, solving problems, and making decisions in a limited amount of time.
  • Heuristics help us save time and energy by finding a solution quickly.
  • There are approximately fifteen generally applied heuristics in psychology:
  • Differentiate between the processes of induction, deduction, abduction, and analogy, discussing heuristics that are used in these processes

• Non-Rational Decision Making

  • He argues that simple heuristics—experience-based techniques for problem-solving—can lead to better decision outcomes than more thorough, theoretically optimal processes that consider vast amounts of information.
  • Where an exhaustive search is impractical, heuristic methods are used to speed up the process of finding a satisfactory solution.

• Analyzing the Options

  • These thinking patterns, known as heuristics, can help us in many situations.
  • For example, in judging distance our minds rely on a heuristic that associate clearness with closeness.
  • But some heuristics can muddle our thinking with biases and irrational preferences.