Talk:Heuristic (psychology)

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 16 September 2019 and 18 December 2019. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): LeahIvie77.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 22:19, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Explaining the name of this article
There seem to me to be at least two broad literature about heuristics. One is from computation/mathematics/engineering and the other is from psychology. The former literature examines how to compute things with efficient procedures. The latter tries to explain in detail how the human mind uses efficient procedures to arrive at estimates, beliefs or decisions. Although the word "heuristic" is being used in exactly the same sense, the literatures are quite disjoint. So it's not as though there should be Heuristics (computation) and Heuristics (psychology), because that would imply the word is being used in different ways. "Heuristics in psychology" would imply the use of rules of thumb by psychologists, or in making inferences about psychology, which would be wrong. Hence the rather long and cumbersome title chosen for this article. MartinPoulter (talk) 12:17, 3 February 2013 (UTC)


 * Hi Martin. I am wondring whether there is significant overlap between this article and the cognitive bias article. Is there a potential risk of redundancy in having the two articles? Cheers Andrew (talk) 07:42, 9 February 2013 (UTC)


 * You're right that there's an overlap. This is a more difficult issue and I'm not sure of the answer. The Cognitive bias article is a mess and I'm not optimistic about it getting better. Cognitive bias is a contested term: some will restrict it to purely cognitive effects in which case it's very narrow; others will want to include motivated irrationality, in which case the term is very broad. Then there's the question of whether "cognitive illusion" which seems to be used more in European writing rather than Anglo-American, refers to the same thing or is more broad. Biases (replicable effects) and heuristics (theorised causes) are logically separate but any article about one is going to talk a lot about the other. But it's such a huge topic that there could be massive articles about both. My favoured approach is to have an overview article and a list article for heuristics, and another overview article and a list article for biases in J&DM, ignoring whether they are cognitive or not. MartinPoulter (talk) 10:12, 9 February 2013 (UTC)


 * Hi Martin. I completely agree that the heuristics in judgment and decision making article that you put together is of far better quality than the cognitive bias article. Nice work. I do, however, still have concerns with the distinction you are trying to draw. I do not think that the naming convention that you put forward (i.e. ‘biases’ for replicable effects and ‘heuristics’ for theorised causes) is reflected in the literature. I am also extremely weary of researchers who speak of "bias" or of increased or decreased “accuracy” as a distinguishing criterion. This occurs a lot in the prejudice literature and I think this critique puts it nicely:


 * “Despite what they might wish, prejudice researchers do not generally occupy some sort of privileged vantage from which to trump the reasoning of ordinary people and become the ultimate arbiters of ‘accuracy’.” (p. 306)


 * At this stage I feel like a single article solution is best, which may then link to more specific articles in time and as necessary. I would like to see your article largely form the basis of that single article, drawing from time to time on content from the cognitive bias article. Due to my concerns about the term ‘bias’ (which I think you might share to some extent), I think a better name would be something like decision making (psychology), judgement (psychology), or judgement effects. What are your thoughts? Cheers Andrew (talk) 03:07, 14 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Sorry for being absent from discussion. Changes in life and work have meant I have a lot less time free for WP. Though my gloss on the term "bias" is contestable, from my understanding of the literature what's called a bias is different from what's called a heuristic. It's legitimate for Wikipedia to have articles about the cognitive biases while noting criticisms that the "biased" judgements might actually be accurate, because researchers have applied the wrong normative standard. Similarly, it's legitimate to discuss heuristics and note the controversy about whether heuristics lead people into inaccurate or accurate judgements. But these still seem to be two different topics. Flesh out more about how a combined article would be structured (and how it would avoid being really huge) and you'll probably convince me. Thanks for your kind comment on the article. MartinPoulter (talk) 16:36, 1 June 2013 (UTC)

We probably need a list article as well
Since the initial Tversky and Kahneman list of three, there must now be hundreds of different proposed heuristics that are relevant. Some are covered in hundreds of papers, some only mentioned in one or two. An article that covers them all comprehensively is probably impossible. It must be possible to have a comprehensive article on this topic, though. I suggest that this should be an overview article, covering the background, general theories and controversies, and those heuristics that have a large literature about them in their own right. A separate list article could try to cover a lot more of heuristics that have been put forward in academic psychology research. Each list entry would say what sort of judgment is made, how is it thought to be made, and what are the sorts of error that can happen if the heuristic is over-applied. Then I hope the more difficult debates about marginally notable theories could be restricted to that list article. So of the bullet-point list of heuristics currently in this article, I expect that some should be expanded into paragraph explanations and some should be moved to the list article. MartinPoulter (talk) 12:28, 3 February 2013 (UTC)


 * Do we not already have List of biases in judgment and decision making? Cheers Andrew (talk) 07:42, 9 February 2013 (UTC)


 * Thanks for weighing in, Andrew. That list has things like hindsight bias, superiority bias, memory biases and so on, while this list is for things like affect heuristic, simulation heuristic, availability heuristic. The heuristics are linked from the "causes" section in the list of biases but there are so many of them in the literature that the heuristics list would be huge in its own right, so having them all in one list is not sustainable. Also, it's not necessary that a heuristic leads to a bias: we should be able to list heuristics that give accurate results. MartinPoulter (talk) 10:02, 9 February 2013 (UTC)


 * Hi Martin. I see that a similar conversation is progressing over at the list talk page. I will contribute my thoughts over there. Cheers Andrew (talk) 03:07, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

"These rules work well under most circumstances"
Is there anything to suggest heuristics "work well?" The whole style of this page is more opinion essay-like than encyclopedic, such a claim in the first paragraph is only an example. 173.195.182.86 (talk) 14:32, 13 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Thanks for raising this, and please continue to point out examples of essay-like style. Would it be more accurate to say that heuristics give results that are accurate in general, but not in every case? Saying that heuristics give mostly accurate answers (and that that's why people use them) is not an opinion but is pretty well accepted across a lot of literature. But you're right to say that "work well" is not a precise way to say it. MartinPoulter (talk) 19:34, 14 August 2013 (UTC)
 * I see no reason to have the "essay style" tag, since the meaning of "heuristics work well" in the lead section was well-defined by the content of the article.--WriterArtistDC (talk) 16:51, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

Added formal heuristic models
I have re-written the introduction to correct misunderstandings about the rationality of heuristics. The text was rather one-sided and I have tried to explain the confusion in a way that kept most of the existing text (or least the point it made. Part of the text I have moved into a separate history section to keep the introduction short. Also, I have added a new section on formal models of heuristics and re-named the section of existing heuristics. I am not sure whether there is a conflict of interest, because I publish on these kind of models. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Blablapedia (talk • contribs) 09:42, 1 June 2019 (UTC)

Rewriting the lead
Thoughts on the ongoing process of fixing problems with the lead:

I note that the Theories section begins "Heuristic processes are used to find answers and solutions most likely to work or be correct." This is the balanced tone the lead should be taking rather than assuming the reader has one particular theoretical perspective on the topic and trying to persuade them into a different theoretical perspective. MartinPoulter (talk) 14:22, 17 April 2020 (UTC)
 * "We are often influenced by our past experiences in our decision making. Which is why people do not generally stress test every chair or surface they might choose to sit on. They should already have a "good idea" of what will withstand the weight and what will probably collapse." This sentence doesn't connect with the paragraph it's in. It seems to be part of an explanation but the reader isn't shown how it connects to the concept of heuristics. Wikipedia also avoids first-person language. Removed: maybe it could be reinserted in the body text rather than the lead.
 * "Some of these heuristic processes include, availability heuristics, representativeness heuristics, anchoring heuristics, affect heuristics, consistency heuristics, and control heuristics, to name a few." removed because, while this is correct, this is just gobbledegook to someone who doesn't already know the topic, and a wall of jargon is going to be off-putting to new readers.
 * "Heuristic processes are used to find answers and solutions most likely to work or be correct." Here it's worrying how the existing lead downplays the role of heuristics in error. Stereotypes are examples of heuristics, and decision based on steretypes are not most likely to be correct. But there's a grain of truth in the sentence, so for now at least I'm only removing "most".
 * "Heuristic processes can easily be confused with the use of human logic, and probability" 'Human logic' is a bizarre phrase and wouldn't be used in a scholarly publication on logic. "confused with" seems the wrong verb. This looks like a radical theory of heuristics rather than an introduction to the existing concept. Later, logic and probability are referred to as "mental processes" which is quite a shocking statement, with which logicians and mathematicians of the 20th century onwards would disagree.
 * "While these processes share some characteristics with heuristics, the assertion that heuristics are not as accurate as logic and probability misses the crucial distinction between risk and uncertainty." Whose assertion? Why are we introduced to the counter-point of the assertion before being told what the assertion is. The present wording of the lead almost totally erases the idea that heuristics can lead to error, except to dispute it. This isn't reflective of the bulk (such as the Tversky & Kahneman books)
 * The risk and uncertainty discussion seems to be advancing one theoretical interpretation rather than introducing the concept. This shouldn't be presented as uncontroversial. I've cut a lot of this down, but again, maybe the text needs to appear in a much later part of the article.
 * "According to Gerd Gigerenzer heuristics are concerned with finding a solution that is "good enough" to satisfy a need." Undue weight to have Gigerenzer being the only author mentioned in the lead. Although he has published a great deal on the topic, his isn't the dominant perspective. That heuristics often give a "good enough" solution is an uncontroversial statement that shouldn't need to be attached to one particular theorist. MartinPoulter (talk) 14:18, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

I added and reworded some of the sentences in the lead so that they made more sense and presented the information more clearly and in a less complicated way. Makaylahatt11 (talk) 20:46, 13 May 2020 (UTC)

I had another go at the lead. It was repetitive, overburdened with citations, and omitted important information. The rest of the article could do with rewriting too in my opinion. It falls for the usual trap you see on WP all the time, that of simply repeating jargon verbatim without explaining it in simple terms.--Murky Falls (talk) 10:10, 29 September 2021 (UTC)

Requested move 17 October 2021

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion. 

The result of the move request was: moved. Consensus is not a vote. Moved to a more concise title. This close does not preclude merges, splits, or fixes for other problems. (non-admin closure) Rotideypoc41352 (talk · contribs) 16:51, 10 November 2021 (UTC)

Heuristics in judgment and decision-making → Heuristic (psychology) – TL;DR - Moving this page should be uncontroversial, but I'm not 100% certain about which name would be preferred. To start with, I'm also fine with Heuristic (cognitive), Heuristic (cognition) and Heuristic (cognitive science). I do prefer psychology because it encompasses cognitive science, so it's the least specific option that still clearly identifies the topic (WP:PRECISE). It's also more recognisable to a lay audience. But I only have a surface level of knowledge of this topic (half of a uni lecture and occasionally reading up on cognitive biases, to be precise), so I could be wrong about which qualifier would be best. The reasoning to move: Basically, the current name isn't ideal and its best to have it in the form of Heuristic (qualifier). Xurizuri (talk) 02:06, 17 October 2021 (UTC) — Relisting. —usernamekiran • sign the guestbook • (talk) 16:43, 1 November 2021 (UTC)
 * 1) WP:COMMONNAME: Psych/cog science call them "heuristics" not "heuristics in judgement and decision-making".
 * 2) WP:QUALIFIER: The parenthetical format is the most appropriate format here. It is not the primary topic, so cannot be just "Heuristic"; it has no real alternative name; it's not appropriate for a comma-separated qualifier; and parenthetical qualifiers are generally preferred over descriptive titles (or titles that combine methods). Note that the current name is descriptive.
 * 3) WP:CONCISE: The current name is very long for no reason.
 * 4) WP:CRITERIA (consistency): The other heuristic articles are titled Heuristic, Heuristic (engineering), Heuristic (computer science), and Heuristic argument (although this last one doesn't support my position, I still think the rest of them show a clear pattern). Singular form ("heuristic") followed by a qualifier in brackets that identifies the relevant field or topic area would also match the pattern broadly used in other science, social science, psychology, and cognitive science articles.


 * absolutely opposed. I agree that the qualifier is necessary, but first and foremost one has to deal with the overlapping mess of this and Heuristics article. Second, one has to see how the subject is "subqualified" in sources. Also, "psychology" is a bad qualifier to management science ("decision making"). Unless you really want to restrict it to psychological aspects of decision making ("gut feeling"). - Altenmann >talk 06:28, 17 October 2021 (UTC)
 * PS And by the way, this article does not even have a definition coming from RS, i.e it reads as one big WP:SYNTH essay. It looks suspiciously like a work of wikipedia school assignment. (And indeed it is, as the top of the talk say - I guessed it right. And as such, it is due to a severe rewrite by sn expert) - Altenmann >talk 06:41, 17 October 2021 (UTC)
 * , we're reading this article very differently if you think this is management science. I definitely agree that there are points where it veers off that course, but most of this is about patterns of thinking that individuals engage in. Which is clearly psychology. You raise that decision making is management science, but this article is also about assessments of the state of the world. A great example is the availability heuristic which isn't actually directly a way to make a decision, it just "helps" us (big quotation marks on helps there) to estimate probability and statistics. And what do you mean about psychological aspects being only gut feelings? Do people not make choices with their minds? Are gut feelings not inherently a way to describe a shortcut your brain takes so you don't have to think too hard? (I would like to also be mildly constructive so - the APA dictionary includes definitions on heuristic, satisfice, elimination by aspects, availability heuristic, representativeness heuristic, anchoring and adjustment, etc. You can see it being described as relevant to psych in most of the leads of the articles for specific heuristics linked in this one, e.g. Familiarity heuristic. The references for this article also are largely published in journals with names mentioning psychology and two of its most central components, cognition and behaviour. Multiple of those journal articles refer to it as psychological - see #4 in particular.) Unless you mean that the management science part is where there's intentional models for rapid decision making, in which case fair. And sure, this article overlaps with the heuristic one - you may note that attempts have been made to summarise this in the other, which is appropriate for a fork off the main article. I think the main article has a lot of other issues, but I don't think you've hit the nail on the head about why. --Xurizuri (talk) 03:59, 18 October 2021 (UTC)
 * I agree that my answer was in a haste and not well-thought of. most of this is about patterns of thinking that individuals engage in. Which is clearly psychology - I take this as a clarification of the article scope. In this case the correct qualifier would be Heuristis (reasoning), which is the relevant subscope of "psychology". And coming to that, IMO this one should be the "main" article on heuristiccs, because the article heuristics defines it as a problem solving technique. Whereas "problem solving" is a subcsope of "reasoning". Therefor before any page moves I suggest to tsop for a while to ponder about the hierarchy of tbe scopes and contexts where the term "heuristic" is used. In patricular, which contexts deserve separate articles and which ones are as subsections. Including splitting hairs between 'judgement', 'decision making', 'problem solving' etc. - Altenmann >talk 20:35, 23 October 2021 (UTC)
 * P.S. After writing that, I started reading and see that the article "Heuristic" is horribly messed up starting with the lede, which definition in a complete mismatch with the sources cited. Because the sources cited define heuristic as a generic way of reasonjng not just problem solving. I.e. confirming my earlier opinion that the two articles in question are just forks, with the current one written as an essay written without any attention to the proper structuring of wikipedia articles. Hence there is my second proposal:


 * MERGE the two articles and then split it into the appropriate subscopes. And do this aftrr first reading the general-purpose sources cited, rather than sources about particular heuristics, because at my first quick glance they do a good job in putting the concept into a general perspective, while wikipedia writers did write out of ther head.- Altenmann >talk 21:02, 23 October 2021 (UTC)
 * P.S. 5 years ago I would have endeavored to do this myself, but now i have become a very feeble-fingered, sorry.- Altenmann >talk 21:04, 23 October 2021 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Orphaned references in Heuristic (psychology)
I check pages listed in Category:Pages with incorrect ref formatting to try to fix reference errors. One of the things I do is look for content for orphaned references in wikilinked articles. I have found content for some of Heuristic (psychology)'s orphans, the problem is that I found more than one version. I can't determine which (if any) is correct for this article, so I am asking for a sentient editor to look it over and copy the correct ref content into this article.

Reference named "Kahneman": From Halo effect:  From Heuristic:  From Decision-making:  

I apologize if any of the above are effectively identical; I am just a simple computer program, so I can't determine whether minor differences are significant or not. AnomieBOT ⚡ 20:58, 10 January 2023 (UTC)