Purpose Heuristics are used in the judgment and decision-making process of bank employees; however, discussions and research on the type or range of judgmental heuristics are very difficult to find throughout the world. In light of this, the purpose of this paper is to empirically analyze what types of heuristics are used in bank employees’ judgment and decision-making processes and the extent to which those types of heuristics prevent rational decision making due to the systematic biases they generate. In particular, this study aims to conduct empirical research based on various scenarios related to the banking industry. Design/methodology/approach To examine the heuristics in decision-making circumstances and the level of subsequent biases, the present study narrowed the scope of research to the three main types of heuristics introduced by Tversky and Kahneman (1974), namely, representativeness heuristics, availability heuristics and anchoring and adjustment heuristics. To analyze the bank employees’ decision making, this study specifically investigated the level of decision-making heuristics and the level of bias by focusing on these three types of heuristics. This study targeted bank employees who either sell financial products or are engaged in customer service work at a real/physical bank. Findings For representativeness heuristics, this study found bank employees’ judgment of probability was influenced by biases, such as insensitivity to prior probability, insensitivity to sample size, misconception of chance and insensitivity to predictability. Regarding availability heuristics, it found that bank employees judge the probability of events based on the ease of recalling an event instead of the actual frequency of the event, and so they fall prey to systematic biases. Finally, regarding anchoring and adjustment heuristics, this study found that employees fall prey to judgment biases as they judge the probability of conjunctive events and disjunctive events based on anchoring and insufficient adjustment. Originality/value Although people who are well-trained in statistics can avoid rudimentary errors, they fall prey to biased judgment at a similar level to those who are not properly trained in statistics when it comes to more complicated and ambiguous issues. It clearly indicates that it is risky to determine that financial experts would be more rational than the general public in making various judgments required in the policy-making process. To conclude, it is imperative to recognize the existence of heuristics-based systematic biases in the judgment and decision-making process and, furthermore, to reinforce the education and training system to improve bank employees’ rational choice and judgment ability.

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It is unique humanity to exhibit an aesthetic preference for displeasing artworks. Although prior works explained this with processing fluency, there is space for theoretical and methodological elaboration. Through two experiments, we aim to disentangle the distinguishable contribution of conceptual fluency in preference for artworks eliciting negative valence from the role of perceptual fluency. We manipulated conceptual fluency by semantic priming (experiment 1), and perceptual one via controlling visual contrast (experiment 2). We measured perceivers' valence, preference, and subtypes of fluency for artworks inducing various valence. With these data, the hedonic and amplifying effects of fluency in aesthetic preference were tested. Also, we recorded their eye movement during art appreciation to precisely capture their processing style varying on the level of fluency. Results of both experiments support that only conceptual fluency directly and indirectly affects art preference. It directly increased preference and attenuated inhibitory effects of negative valence on art preference. This suggests that the amplifying model for fluency does not fit the context of art appreciation. Furthermore, eye tracking analysis revealed that all groups performed automatic processing regardless of contrast level in experiment 2. However, the primed group conducted controlled processing, unlike the not-primed group in experiment 1. With the pleasure- interest model of aesthetic liking ('PIA model', Graf & Landwehr, 2015), this result emphasizes the role of conceptual fluency via semantic priming in aesthetic preference. Generally, our study purposed to refine the amplifying theory of processing fluency and the PIA model to underpin their potential in empirical aesthetics.

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