User:Aheuer15/sandbox

Heuristics in Judgement and Decision-Making

Heuristics are short simple strategies or shortcuts metal processes that humans, animals, organizations and even certain some machines use. It is a process To quickly form judgments, make decisions, and find solutions to complex problems. This happens when an individual, human or otherwise, focuses on the most relevant aspects of a problem or situation to formulate a solution.

We are often influenced by our past experiences in our decision making. Which  is why people do not generally [AH2]  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. Or even what is cushioned versus what is hard. There are many kinds of heuristics that can be tailored to solve various problems in any aspect. Including psychology, technology design, and/or economics. Some heuristic processes include, availability heuristics, representativeness heuristics, anchoring heuristics, affect heuristics, consistency heuristics, and control heuristics[AH3], to name a few. Heuristics are used to find answers and solutions most likely to work or be corrected. This does not mean, however, that heuristics are always right.`

Heuristics can easily be confused with the use of human logic, and/or probability. While these processes share a few characteristics, the assertion that heuristics are not as accurate as logic and probability misses the crucial distinction between risk and uncertainty. Risk meaning  all possible outcomes of an action are known and taken into account when making a decision. In contrast, uncertainty refers to situations where pieces of information are unknown or unknowable.

Therefore, there should be no major comparisons between the two because they are separate.

In situations of risk, heuristics face an accuracy-effort trade-off where their simplified decision process leads to reduced accuracy. In contrast, situations of uncertainty allow for less-is-more effects, where systematically ignoring (or in some cases lacking) information leads to more accurate inferences. Less-is-more effects have been shown experimentally, analytically, and by computer simulations. Though both of these mental processes are similar to heuristics, they are not the same.[AH4]  According to Gerd Gigerenzer heuristics are concerned with finding a solution that is "good enough" to satisfy a need. They serve as a quick mental reference for everyday experiences and decisions.

Consistency heuristic:

One of many varieties of heuristic processing, this consistency heuristic is deemed specific to computer science and programming.

Persuasion:

An example of how persuasion plays a role in heuristic processing can be explained through the heuristic-systematic model. This explains how there are often two ways we are able to process information from persuasive messages, one being heuristically and the other systematically. A heuristic is when we make a quick short judgement into our decision making. On the other hand, systematic processing involves more analytical and inquisitive cognitive thinking. Individuals looks further than their own prior knowledge for the answers. An example of this model could be used when watching an advertisement about a specific medication. One without prior knowledge would see the person in the proper pharmaceutical attire and assume that they know what they are talking about. Therefore, that person automatically has more credibility and is more likely to trust the content of the messages than they deliver. While another who is also in that field of work or already has prior knowledge of the medication will not be persuaded by the ad because of their systematic way of thinking. This was also formally demonstrated in an experiment conducted my Chaiken and Maheswaran (1994). In addition to these examples, the fluency heuristic ties in perfectly with the topic of persuasion. It is described as how we all easily make "the most of an automatic by-product of retrieval from memory". An example would be a friend asking about good books to read. Many could come to mind, but you name the first book recalled from your memory. Since it was the first thought, therefore you value it as better than any other book one could suggest. The effort heuristic is almost identical to fluency. The one distinction would be that objects that take longer to produce are seen with more value. One may conclude that a glass vase is more valuable than a drawing, merely because it may take longer for the vase. These two varieties of heuristics confirms how we may be influenced easily our mental shortcuts, or what may come quickest to our mind.

Representative heuristic:

The representativeness heuristic is seen when people use categories, for example when guessing or assuming the personality of another. For example, not all lawyers are serious. . [AH6] An individual thing has a high representativeness for a category if it is very similar to a prototype of that category. When people categorize things based on representativeness, they are using the representativeness heuristic. "Representative" here is meant in two different senses: the prototype used for comparison is representative of its category, and representativeness is also a relation between that prototype and the thing being categorized. While it is effective for some problems, this heuristic involves attending to the particular characteristics of the individual, ignoring how common those categories are in the population (called the base rates). Thus, people can overestimate the likelihood that something has a very rare property or underestimate the likelihood of a very common property. This is called the base rate fallacy. Representativeness explains this and several other ways in which human judgments break the laws of probability. undefined

The representativeness heuristic is also an explanation of how people judge cause and effect: when they make these judgments based on similarity, they are also said to be using the representativeness heuristic. This can lead to a bias, incorrectly finding causal relationships between things that resemble one another and missing them when the cause and effect are very different. Examples of this include both the belief that "emotionally relevant events ought to have emotionally relevant causes", and magical associative thinking.

More examples can include medical treatments. It has been common to believe that any symptoms of illness would match the method of treatment or medication. In ancient China one with eye-sight problems would be fed ground bat. This was due to the fact that bats were believed to have great vision. And that by consuming them it would somehow manage to transfer that good vision from the bat to the patient.