Heuristics

Heuristics are mental rules of thumb that the mind uses to simplify judgment (Braisby &
Gellatly, 2012). The simplified thinking process makes it easy to make judgments and solve
problems. There are three types of heuristics: representativeness heuristic, availability heuristic,
and anchor and adjust heuristic (Braisby & Gellatly, 2012).
The representative heuristic explains the phenomenon where an event occurs based on its
similarity to another event or category of events (Braisby & Gellatly, 2012). The weakness of
this type of heuristic is that it is based on the base rate, and when base rates of different
categories change, individual biases also change. Strategies of judgment simplification occur to
reduce the complexity of judgments. I have always thought that lawyers are arrogant, and in
some instances, I have expected it from my experience. However, argue that this kind of
judgment is dangerous because “ it neglects the prevalence of lawyers in the society. The
availability heuristic occurs when people estimate the relative ease with which an event occurs
due to the ease with which relative instances occur in mind. This occurs because frequent events
are easier to remember than less frequent events (Braisby & Gellatly, 2012). My experience with
the availability heuristic was during the COVID-19 lockdown period. Any time I developed a
headache or symptoms closely related to a cold, my mind drifted towards the possibility that I
had been infected. The anchor and adjust heuristic occurs when people make judgments based on
an initial value and then adjust to arrive at a final value (Braisby & Gellatly, 2012). This type of
judgment is made based entirely on the value of the starting point. I recently went to a store to
replace my Bluetooth headset. The first set I saw was $94, and then I saw another set from
another brand retailing for $38. I thought that the second one was cheap based on my judgment
of the first price.

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References

Nick Braisby, & Angus Gellatly. (2012). Cognitive Psychology: Vol. Second edition. OUP
Oxford
(Braisby & Gellatly, 2012)