How Heuristics Help You Make Quick Decisions (2024)

If you need to make a quick decision, there's a good chance you'll rely on a heuristic to come up with a speedy solution. Heuristicsare mental shortcuts that allow people to solve problems and make judgments quickly and efficiently. Common types of heuristics rely on availability, representativeness, familiarity, anchoring effects, mood, scarcity, and trial-and-error.

However, heuristics have both benefits and drawbacks. These strategies can be handy in many situations but can also lead tocognitive biases. Becoming aware of this might help you make better and more accurate decisions.

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History of the Research on Heuristics

Nobel-prize winning economist and cognitive psychologist Herbert Simon originally introduced the concept of heuristics in psychology in the 1950s. He suggested that while people strive to make rational choices, human judgment is subject to cognitive limitations. Purely rational decisions would involve weighing every alternative's potential costs and possible benefits.

However, people are limited by the amount of time they have to make a choice and the amount of information they have at their disposal. Other factors, such as overall intelligence and accuracy of perceptions, also influence the decision-making process.

In the 1970s, psychologists Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman presented their research on cognitive biases. They proposed that these biases influence how people think and make judgments.

Simon's research demonstrated that humans were limited in their ability to make rational decisions, but it was Tversky and Kahneman's work that introduced the study of heuristics and the specific ways of thinking that people rely on to simplify the decision-making process.

How Heuristics Are Used

Heuristics play important roles in bothproblem-solvinganddecision-making, as we often turn to these mental shortcuts when we need a quick solution.

Here are a few different theories from psychologists about why we rely on heuristics.

• Attribute substitution: People substitute simplerbut related questions in place of more complex and difficult questions.
• Effort reduction: People use heuristics as a type of cognitive laziness to reduce the mental effort required to make choices and decisions.
• Fast and frugal: People use heuristics because they can be fast and correct in certain contexts. Some theories argue that heuristics are actually more accurate than they are biased.

You probably make hundreds or even thousands of decisions every day. What should you have for breakfast? What should you wear today? Should you drive or take the bus? Fortunately, heuristics allow you to make such decisions with relative ease and without a great deal of agonizing.

There are many heuristics examples in everyday life. When trying to decide if you should drive or ride the bus to work, for instance, you might remember that there is road construction along the bus route. You realize that this might slow the bus and cause you to be late for work. So you leave earlier and drive to work on an alternate route.

Heuristics allow you to think through the possible outcomes quickly and arrive at a solution.

Types of Heuristics

There are many different kinds of heuristics. While each type plays a role in decision-making, they occur during different contexts. Understanding the types can help you better understand which one you are using and when.

Availability

The availability heuristicinvolves making decisions based upon how easy it is to bring something to mind. When you are trying to make a decision, you might quickly remember a number of relevant examples.

For example, imagine you are planning to fly somewhere on vacation. As you are preparing for your trip, you might start to think of a number of recent airline accidents. You might feel like air travel is too dangerous and decide to travel by car instead. Because those examples of air disasters came to mind so easily, the availability heuristic leads you to think that plane crashes are more common than they really are.

Familiarity

The familiarity heuristic refers to how people tend to have more favorable opinions of things, people, or places they've experienced before as opposed to new ones. In fact, given two options, people may choose something they're more familiar with even if the new option provides more benefits.

Representativeness

The representativeness heuristicinvolves making a decision by comparing the present situation to the most representative mental prototype. When you are trying to decide if someone is trustworthy, you might compare aspects of the individual to other mental examples you hold.

A soft-spoken older woman might remind you of your grandmother, so you might immediately assume she is kind, gentle, and trustworthy. However, this is an example of a heuristic bias, as you can't know someone trustworthy based on their age alone.

Affect

The affect heuristic involves making choices that are influenced by an individual's emotions at that moment. For example, research has shown that people are more likely to see decisions as having benefits and lower risks when in a positive mood.

Anchoring

The anchoring bias involves the tendency to be overly influenced by the first bit of information we hear or learn. This can make it more difficult to consider other factors and lead to poor choices. For example, anchoring bias can influence how much you are willing to pay for something, causing you to jump at the first offer without shopping around for a better deal.

Scarcity

Scarcity is a heuristic principle in which we view things that are scarce or less available to us as inherently more valuable. Marketers often use the scarcity heuristic to influence people to buy certain products. This is why you'll often see signs that advertise "limited time only," or that tell you to "get yours while supplies last."

Trial and Error

Trial and error is another type of heuristic in which people use a number of different strategies to solve something until they find what works. Examples of this type of heuristic are evident in everyday life.

People use trial and error when playing video games, finding the fastest driving route to work, or learning to ride a bike (or any new skill).

Difference Between Heuristics and Algorithms

Though the terms are often confused, heuristics and algorithms are two distinct terms in psychology.

Examples of algorithms include instructions for how to put together a piece of furniture or a recipe for cooking a certain dish. Health professionals also create algorithms or processes to follow in order to determine what type of treatment to use on a patient.

How Heuristics Can Lead to Bias

Heuristics can certainly help us solve problems and speed up our decision-making process, but that doesn't mean they are always a good thing. They can also introduce errors, bias, and irrational decision-making. As in the examples above, heuristics can lead to inaccurate judgments about how commonly things occur and how representative certain things may be.

Heuristics can also contribute to stereotypes andprejudice. Because people use mental shortcuts to classify and categorize people, they often overlook more relevant information and create stereotyped categorizations that are not in tune with reality.

How to Make Better Decisions

While heuristics can be a useful tool, there are ways you can improve your decision-making and avoid cognitive bias at the same time.

Slow Down

We are more likely to make an error in judgment if we are trying to make a decision quickly or are under pressure to do so. Taking a little more time to make a decision can help you see things more clearly—and make better choices.

Whenever possible, take a few deep breaths and do something to distract yourself from the decision at hand. When you return to it, you may find a fresh perspective or notice something you didn't before.

Identify the Goal

We tend to focus automatically on what works for us and make decisions that serve our best interest. But take a moment to know what you're trying to achieve. Consider some of the following questions:

• Are there other people who will be affected by this decision?
• What's best for them?
• Is there a common goal that can be achieved that will serve all parties?

Thinking through these questions can help you figure out your goals and the impact that these decisions may have.

Process Your Emotions

Fast decision-making is often influenced by emotions from past experiences that bubble to the surface. Anger, sadness, love, and other powerful feelings can sometimes lead us to decisions we might not otherwise make.

Is your decision based on facts or emotions? While emotions can be helpful, they may affect decisions in a negative way if they prevent us from seeing the full picture.

Recognize All-or-Nothing Thinking

When making a decision, it's a common tendency to believe you have to pick a single, well-defined path, and there's no going back. In reality, this often isn't the case.

Sometimes there are compromises involving two choices, or a third or fourth option that we didn't even think of at first. Try to recognize the nuances and possibilities of all choices involved, instead of using all-or-nothing thinking.

Takeaways

Heuristics are common and often useful. We need this type of decision-making strategy to help reduce cognitive load and speed up many of the small, everyday choices we must make as we live, work, and interact with others.

But it pays to remember that heuristics can also be flawed and lead to irrational choices if we rely too heavily on them. If you are making a big decision, give yourself a little extra time to consider your options and try to consider the situation from someone else's perspective. Thinking things through a bit instead of relying on your mental shortcuts can help ensure you're making the right choice.