heuristics

A heuristic is a mental shortcut used by humans when attempting to make a decision or a judgment as one may not have the needed time to think things through in a certain situation. This mental shortcut can be seen as involving cognitive stereotypes or past experiences that influence one’s present or future thoughts. Heuristics are acquired habits that might lead one to either make faulty decisions or successful ones. As human beings we opt for different kinds of heuristics, which include the following: representativeness heuristic, availability heuristic, simulation heuristic and anchoring and adjustment heuristic. The aim of this paper is to shed light on this psychological concept by dwelling on its different types and to provide examples for each type.

The representativeness heuristic is the judgment heuristic; it is the heuristic a human relies on when trying to judge a person, a phenomenon or an event based on an existing pattern in one’s mind. An example of that would be:

Tom’s friend told him that he had acquired a lot of money after gambling in a club and recommended that Tom give it a try sometime soon. Tom, convinced that he would be destined to the same outcome as his friend, takes the decision to make it to the club and gamble. He decides to venture with all the money in his possession but ends up losing all the amount.

What happened in this specific situation was that Tom depended on his friend’s experience which suggested the high probability of winning money; a suggestion that is far from being true primarily because when gambling, there always exists a 50/50 chance of winning. An equation Tom had ignored because he developed the judgment based on a similar experience and therefore bid all his money without thinking it through.

Availability heuristic involves the instantaneous thoughts that come to one’s mind when trying to make a decision. An example of that type would be:

A man spending his vacation on a beach in Sharm el