Heuristic Decision Making

Abstract

As reflected in the amount of controversy, few areas in psychology have undergone such dramatic conceptual changes in the past decade as the emerging science of heuristics. Heuristics are efficient cognitive processes, conscious or unconscious, that ignore part of the information. Because using heuristics saves effort, the classical view has been that heuristic decisions imply greater errors than do "rational" decisions as defined by logic or statistical models. However, for many decisions, the assumptions of rational models are not met, and it is an empirical rather than an a priori issue how well cognitive heuristics function in an uncertain world. To answer both the descriptive question ("Which heuristics do people use in which situations?") and the prescriptive question ("When should people rely on a given heuristic rather than a complex strategy to make better judgments?"), formal models are indispensable. We review research that tests formal models of heuristic inference, including in business organizations, health care, and legal institutions. This research indicates that (a) individuals and organizations often rely on simple heuristics in an adaptive way, and (b) ignoring part of the information can lead to more accurate judgments than weighting and adding all information, for instance for low predictability and small samples. The big future challenge is to develop a systematic theory of the building blocks of heuristics as well as the core capacities and environmental structures these exploit.

Recent insights into decision-making and their implications for informed consent

“…In case information exceeds the capacity of our deliberative system or if deliberation costs too much investment in terms of time and/or effort, we use—consciously or unconsciously—heuristics 2. Heuristics are divergent strategies that ignore part of the information, with the aim of making faster, more efficient and/or more accurate choices than with the more complex, analytical methods 13. Although heuristics can lead to ‘good’ choices in certain contexts,13 16 they are also sensitive to—often predictable—bias.…”

Premature closure? Not so fast

“…Zwaan et al 's study shines a light on this question: an average of 1.75 cognitive biases was appreciated when the working diagnosis proved to be correct. Many studies show that heuristics can lead to better decisions than analytical models 16. Heuristics are not a ‘bug’ in our neural software—they are an essential feature of the programme.…”

Self-reported Pediatric Measures of Physical Activity, Sedentary Behavior, and Strength Impact for PROMIS

“…4,5 Recall error or bias may be reduced in self-report instruments by ensuring the content of the item is easily understood and relevant to the respondent, and by considering the cognitive strategies respondents use for recall. 15 Inclusion of PA characteristics in self-report items may be useful for enhancing the precision of recall. Physical activity behaviors of adults are often characterized by their frequency, duration and intensity; organized by the contexts of leisure, occupation, household, or transport; and, described contextually by dimensions of time, place, position or person.…”

“…17 In adults we know that recall strategies, or cognitive heuristics, generally ignore some information to enable faster, more efficient decision making that may also be more accurate than complex recall strategies. 15 Such strategies also include the reliance on recognition or familiarity of response concepts rather than specific recollection, the speed of recognition of the response meaning (the one recognized faster is more often chosen), the perceived value of response (pick the one you think is “better”). Interestingly, little is known about how these heuristic tools change across the lifespan, or if the same heuristics are used in children and adults.…”