User:LeahIvie77/Heuristics in judgment and decision-making

Heuristics are simple strategies or mental processes that humans, animals, , organizations and even some machines use 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. Those involved in making these decisions can also be influenced by similar past experiences as well. This is the reason that people do not generally stress test every chair or surface they might choose to sit on. They generally have "good idea" of what will withstand the weight and what will probably collapse. There are many different kinds of heuristics that can be tailored to solve many different types of problems in everything from psychology to technology design to economics. Some of these heuristic processes include, availability heuristics, representativeness heuristics, anchoring heuristics, affect heuristics, consistency heuristics, and control heuristics, to name a few. Heuristic processes are used to find answers and solutions most likely to work or be correct. This does not mean however, that heuristics are always right.

Heuristic processes can easily be confused with the use of human logic, and probability. 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. Risk refers to situations where 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.

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. 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.