a mental or problem solving shortcut to make a decision is called

Reviewed by Psychology Today Staff

A heuristic is a mental shortcut that allows an individual to make a decision, pass judgment, or solve a problem quickly and with minimal mental effort. While heuristics can reduce the burden of decision-making and free up limited cognitive resources, they can also be costly when they lead individuals to miss critical information or act on unjust biases.

• Understanding Heuristics
• Different Heuristics
• Problems with Heuristics

As humans move throughout the world, they must process large amounts of information and make many choices with limited amounts of time. When information is missing, or an immediate decision is necessary, heuristics act as “rules of thumb” that guide behavior down the most efficient pathway.

Heuristics are not unique to humans; animals use heuristics that, though less complex, also serve to simplify decision-making and reduce cognitive load.

Generally, yes. Navigating day-to-day life requires everyone to make countless small decisions within a limited timeframe. Heuristics can help individuals save time and mental energy, freeing up cognitive resources for more complex planning and problem-solving endeavors.

The human brain and all its processes—including heuristics— developed over millions of years of evolution . Since mental shortcuts save both cognitive energy and time, they likely provided an advantage to those who relied on them.

Heuristics that were helpful to early humans may not be universally beneficial today . The familiarity heuristic, for example—in which the familiar is preferred over the unknown—could steer early humans toward foods or people that were safe, but may trigger anxiety or unfair biases in modern times.

The study of heuristics was developed by renowned psychologists Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky. Starting in the 1970s, Kahneman and Tversky identified several different kinds of heuristics, most notably the availability heuristic and the anchoring heuristic.

Since then, researchers have continued their work and identified many different kinds of heuristics, including:

Familiarity heuristic

Fundamental attribution error

Representativeness heuristic

Satisficing

The anchoring heuristic, or anchoring bias , occurs when someone relies more heavily on the first piece of information learned when making a choice, even if it's not the most relevant. In such cases, anchoring is likely to steer individuals wrong .

The availability heuristic describes the mental shortcut in which someone estimates whether something is likely to occur based on how readily examples come to mind . People tend to overestimate the probability of plane crashes, homicides, and shark attacks, for instance, because examples of such events are easily remembered.

People who make use of the representativeness heuristic categorize objects (or other people) based on how similar they are to known entities —assuming someone described as "quiet" is more likely to be a librarian than a politician, for instance. 

Satisficing is a decision-making strategy in which the first option that satisfies certain criteria is selected , even if other, better options may exist.

Heuristics, while useful, are imperfect; if relied on too heavily, they can result in incorrect judgments or cognitive biases. Some are more likely to steer people wrong than others.

Assuming, for example, that child abductions are common because they’re frequently reported on the news—an example of the availability heuristic—may trigger unnecessary fear or overprotective parenting practices. Understanding commonly unhelpful heuristics, and identifying situations where they could affect behavior, may help individuals avoid such mental pitfalls.

Sometimes called the attribution effect or correspondence bias, the term describes a tendency to attribute others’ behavior primarily to internal factors—like personality or character— while attributing one’s own behavior more to external or situational factors .

If one person steps on the foot of another in a crowded elevator, the victim may attribute it to carelessness. If, on the other hand, they themselves step on another’s foot, they may be more likely to attribute the mistake to being jostled by someone else .

Listen to your gut, but don’t rely on it . Think through major problems methodically—by making a list of pros and cons, for instance, or consulting with people you trust. Make extra time to think through tasks where snap decisions could cause significant problems, such as catching an important flight.

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Heuristics: Definition, Examples, And How They Work

Benjamin Frimodig

Science Expert

B.A., History and Science, Harvard University

Ben Frimodig is a 2021 graduate of Harvard College, where he studied the History of Science.

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Saul Mcleod, PhD

Editor-in-Chief for Simply Psychology

BSc (Hons) Psychology, MRes, PhD, University of Manchester

Saul Mcleod, PhD., is a qualified psychology teacher with over 18 years of experience in further and higher education. He has been published in peer-reviewed journals, including the Journal of Clinical Psychology.

On This Page:

Every day our brains must process and respond to thousands of problems, both large and small, at a moment’s notice. It might even be overwhelming to consider the sheer volume of complex problems we regularly face in need of a quick solution.

While one might wish there was time to methodically and thoughtfully evaluate the fine details of our everyday tasks, the cognitive demands of daily life often make such processing logistically impossible.

Therefore, the brain must develop reliable shortcuts to keep up with the stimulus-rich environments we inhabit. Psychologists refer to these efficient problem-solving techniques as heuristics.

Heuristics can be thought of as general cognitive frameworks humans rely on regularly to reach a solution quickly.

For example, if a student needs to decide what subject she will study at university, her intuition will likely be drawn toward the path that she envisions as most satisfying, practical, and interesting.

She may also think back on her strengths and weaknesses in secondary school or perhaps even write out a pros and cons list to facilitate her choice.

It’s important to note that these heuristics broadly apply to everyday problems, produce sound solutions, and helps simplify otherwise complicated mental tasks. These are the three defining features of a heuristic.

While the concept of heuristics dates back to Ancient Greece (the term is derived from the Greek word for “to discover”), most of the information known today on the subject comes from prominent twentieth-century social scientists.

Herbert Simon’s study of a notion he called “bounded rationality” focused on decision-making under restrictive cognitive conditions, such as limited time and information.

This concept of optimizing an inherently imperfect analysis frames the contemporary study of heuristics and leads many to credit Simon as a foundational figure in the field.

Kahneman’s Theory of Decision Making

The immense contributions of psychologist Daniel Kahneman to our understanding of cognitive problem-solving deserve special attention.

As context for his theory, Kahneman put forward the estimate that an individual makes around 35,000 decisions each day! To reach these resolutions, the mind relies on either “fast” or “slow” thinking.

The fast thinking pathway (system 1) operates mostly unconsciously and aims to reach reliable decisions with as minimal cognitive strain as possible.

While system 1 relies on broad observations and quick evaluative techniques (heuristics!), system 2 (slow thinking) requires conscious, continuous attention to carefully assess the details of a given problem and logically reach a solution.

Given the sheer volume of daily decisions, it’s no surprise that around 98% of problem-solving uses system 1.

Thus, it is crucial that the human mind develops a toolbox of effective, efficient heuristics to support this fast-thinking pathway.

Heuristics vs. Algorithms

Those who’ve studied the psychology of decision-making might notice similarities between heuristics and algorithms. However, remember that these are two distinct modes of cognition.

Heuristics are methods or strategies which often lead to problem solutions but are not guaranteed to succeed.

They can be distinguished from algorithms, which are methods or procedures that will always produce a solution sooner or later.

An algorithm is a step-by-step procedure that can be reliably used to solve a specific problem. While the concept of an algorithm is most commonly used in reference to technology and mathematics, our brains rely on algorithms every day to resolve issues (Kahneman, 2011).

The important thing to remember is that algorithms are a set of mental instructions unique to specific situations, while heuristics are general rules of thumb that can help the mind process and overcome various obstacles.

For example, if you are thoughtfully reading every line of this article, you are using an algorithm.

On the other hand, if you are quickly skimming each section for important information or perhaps focusing only on sections you don’t already understand, you are using a heuristic!

Why Heuristics Are Used

Heuristics usually occurs when one of five conditions is met (Pratkanis, 1989):

• When one is faced with too much information
• When the time to make a decision is limited
• When the decision to be made is unimportant
• When there is access to very little information to use in making the decision
• When an appropriate heuristic happens to come to mind at the same moment

When studying heuristics, keep in mind both the benefits and unavoidable drawbacks of their application. The ubiquity of these techniques in human society makes such weaknesses especially worthy of evaluation.

More specifically, in expediting decision-making processes, heuristics also predispose us to a number of cognitive biases .

A cognitive bias is an incorrect but pervasive judgment derived from an illogical pattern of cognition. In simple terms, a cognitive bias occurs when one internalizes a subjective perception as a reliable and objective truth.

Heuristics are reliable but imperfect; In the application of broad decision-making “shortcuts” to guide one’s response to specific situations, occasional errors are both inevitable and have the potential to catalyze persistent mistakes.

For example, consider the risks of faulty applications of the representative heuristic discussed above. While the technique encourages one to assign situations into broad categories based on superficial characteristics and one’s past experiences for the sake of cognitive expediency, such thinking is also the basis of stereotypes and discrimination.

In practice, these errors result in the disproportionate favoring of one group and/or the oppression of other groups within a given society.

Indeed, the most impactful research relating to heuristics often centers on the connection between them and systematic discrimination.

The tradeoff between thoughtful rationality and cognitive efficiency encompasses both the benefits and pitfalls of heuristics and represents a foundational concept in psychological research.

When learning about heuristics, keep in mind their relevance to all areas of human interaction. After all, the study of social psychology is intrinsically interdisciplinary.

Many of the most important studies on heuristics relate to flawed decision-making processes in high-stakes fields like law, medicine, and politics.

Researchers often draw on a distinct set of already established heuristics in their analysis. While dozens of unique heuristics have been observed, brief descriptions of those most central to the field are included below:

Availability Heuristic

The availability heuristic describes the tendency to make choices based on information that comes to mind readily.

For example, children of divorced parents are more likely to have pessimistic views towards marriage as adults.

Of important note, this heuristic can also involve assigning more importance to more recently learned information, largely due to the easier recall of such information.

Representativeness Heuristic

This technique allows one to quickly assign probabilities to and predict the outcome of new scenarios using psychological prototypes derived from past experiences.

For example, juries are less likely to convict individuals who are well-groomed and wearing formal attire (under the assumption that stylish, well-kempt individuals typically do not commit crimes).

This is one of the most studied heuristics by social psychologists for its relevance to the development of stereotypes.

Scarcity Heuristic

This method of decision-making is predicated on the perception of less abundant, rarer items as inherently more valuable than more abundant items.

We rely on the scarcity heuristic when we must make a fast selection with incomplete information. For example, a student deciding between two universities may be drawn toward the option with the lower acceptance rate, assuming that this exclusivity indicates a more desirable experience.

The concept of scarcity is central to behavioral economists’ study of consumer behavior (a field that evaluates economics through the lens of human psychology).

Trial and Error

This is the most basic and perhaps frequently cited heuristic. Trial and error can be used to solve a problem that possesses a discrete number of possible solutions and involves simply attempting each possible option until the correct solution is identified.

For example, if an individual was putting together a jigsaw puzzle, he or she would try multiple pieces until locating a proper fit.

This technique is commonly taught in introductory psychology courses due to its simple representation of the central purpose of heuristics: the use of reliable problem-solving frameworks to reduce cognitive load.

Anchoring and Adjustment Heuristic

Anchoring refers to the tendency to formulate expectations relating to new scenarios relative to an already ingrained piece of information.

Put simply, this anchoring one to form reasonable estimations around uncertainties. For example, if asked to estimate the number of days in a year on Mars, many people would first call to mind the fact the Earth’s year is 365 days (the “anchor”) and adjust accordingly.

This tendency can also help explain the observation that ingrained information often hinders the learning of new information, a concept known as retroactive inhibition.

Familiarity Heuristic

This technique can be used to guide actions in cognitively demanding situations by simply reverting to previous behaviors successfully utilized under similar circumstances.

The familiarity heuristic is most useful in unfamiliar, stressful environments.

For example, a job seeker might recall behavioral standards in other high-stakes situations from her past (perhaps an important presentation at university) to guide her behavior in a job interview.

Many psychologists interpret this technique as a slightly more specific variation of the availability heuristic.

How to Make Better Decisions

Heuristics are ingrained cognitive processes utilized by all humans and can lead to various biases.

Both of these statements are established facts. However, this does not mean that the biases that heuristics produce are unavoidable. As the wide-ranging impacts of such biases on societal institutions have become a popular research topic, psychologists have emphasized techniques for reaching more sound, thoughtful and fair decisions in our daily lives.

Ironically, many of these techniques are themselves heuristics!

To focus on the key details of a given problem, one might create a mental list of explicit goals and values. To clearly identify the impacts of choice, one should imagine its impacts one year in the future and from the perspective of all parties involved.

Most importantly, one must gain a mindful understanding of the problem-solving techniques used by our minds and the common mistakes that result. Mindfulness of these flawed yet persistent pathways allows one to quickly identify and remedy the biases (or otherwise flawed thinking) they tend to create!

Further Information

• Shah, A. K., & Oppenheimer, D. M. (2008). Heuristics made easy: an effort-reduction framework. Psychological bulletin, 134(2), 207.
• Marewski, J. N., & Gigerenzer, G. (2012). Heuristic decision making in medicine. Dialogues in clinical neuroscience, 14(1), 77.
• Del Campo, C., Pauser, S., Steiner, E., & Vetschera, R. (2016). Decision making styles and the use of heuristics in decision making. Journal of Business Economics, 86(4), 389-412.

What is a heuristic in psychology?

A heuristic in psychology is a mental shortcut or rule of thumb that simplifies decision-making and problem-solving. Heuristics often speed up the process of finding a satisfactory solution, but they can also lead to cognitive biases.

Bobadilla-Suarez, S., & Love, B. C. (2017, May 29). Fast or Frugal, but Not Both: Decision Heuristics Under Time Pressure. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition .

Bowes, S. M., Ammirati, R. J., Costello, T. H., Basterfield, C., & Lilienfeld, S. O. (2020). Cognitive biases, heuristics, and logical fallacies in clinical practice: A brief field guide for practicing clinicians and supervisors. Professional Psychology: Research and Practice, 51 (5), 435–445.

Dietrich, C. (2010). “Decision Making: Factors that Influence Decision Making, Heuristics Used, and Decision Outcomes.” Inquiries Journal/Student Pulse, 2(02).

Groenewegen, A. (2021, September 1). Kahneman Fast and slow thinking: System 1 and 2 explained by Sue. SUE Behavioral Design. Retrieved March 26, 2022, from https://suebehaviouraldesign.com/kahneman-fast-slow-thinking/

Kahneman, D., Lovallo, D., & Sibony, O. (2011). Before you make that big decision .

Kahneman, D. (2011). Thinking, fast and slow . Macmillan.

Pratkanis, A. (1989). The cognitive representation of attitudes. In A. R. Pratkanis, S. J. Breckler, & A. G. Greenwald (Eds.), Attitude structure and function (pp. 71–98). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.

Simon, H.A., 1956. Rational choice and the structure of the environment. Psychological Review .

Tversky, A., & Kahneman, D. (1974). Judgment under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases. Science, 185 (4157), 1124–1131.

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Availability Heuristic and Decision Making

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What are heuristics and how do they help us make decisions?

Heuristics are simple rules of thumb that our brains use to make decisions. When you choose a work outfit that looks professional instead of sweatpants, you’re making a decision based on past information. That's not intuition; it’s heuristics. Instead of weighing all the information available to make a data-backed choice, heuristics enable us to move quickly into action—mostly without us even realizing it. In this article, you’ll learn what heuristics are, their common types, and how we use them in different scenarios.

Green means go. Most of us accept this as common knowledge, but it’s actually an example of a micro-decision—in this case, your brain is deciding to go when you see the color green.

You make countless of these subconscious decisions every day. Many things that you might think just come naturally to you are actually caused by heuristics—mental shortcuts that allow you to quickly process information and take action. Heuristics help you make smaller, almost unnoticeable decisions using past information, without much rational input from your brain.

Heuristics are helpful for getting things done more quickly, but they can also lead to biases and irrational choices if you’re not aware of them. Luckily, you can use heuristics to your advantage once you recognize them, and make better decisions in the workplace.

What is a heuristic?

Heuristics are mental shortcuts that your brain uses to make decisions. When we make rational choices, our brains weigh all the information, pros and cons, and any relevant data. But it’s not possible to do this for every single decision we make on a day-to-day basis. For the smaller ones, your brain uses heuristics to infer information and take almost-immediate action.

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How heuristics work

For example, if you’re making a larger decision about whether to accept a new job or stay with your current one, your brain will process this information slowly. For decisions like this, you collect data by referencing sources—chatting with mentors, reading company reviews, and comparing salaries. Then, you use that information to make your decision. Meanwhile, your brain is also using heuristics to help you speed along that track. In this example, you might use something called the “availability heuristic” to reference things you’ve recently seen about the new job. The availability heuristic makes it more likely that you’ll remember a news story about the company’s higher stock prices. Without realizing it, this can make you think the new job will be more lucrative.

On the flip side, you can recognize that the new job has had some great press recently, but that might be just a great PR team at work. Instead of “buying in” to what the availability heuristic is trying to tell you—that positive news means it’s the right job—you can acknowledge that this is a bias at work. In this case, comparing compensation and work-life balance between the two companies is a much more effective way to choose which job is right for you.

History of heuristics

The term "heuristics," originating from the Greek word meaning “to discover,” has ancient roots, but much of today's understanding comes from twentieth-century social scientists. Herbert Simon's research into "bounded rationality" highlighted the use of heuristics in decision-making, particularly under constraints like limited time and information.

Daniel Kahneman was one of the first researchers to study heuristics in his behavioral economics work in the 1970’s, along with fellow psychologist Amos Tversky. They theorized that many of the decisions and judgments we make aren’t rational—meaning we don’t move through a series of decision-making steps to come to a solution. Instead, the human brain uses mental shortcuts to form seemingly irrational, “fast and frugal” decisions—quick choices that don’t require a lot of mental energy.

Kahneman’s work showed that heuristics lead to systematic errors (or biases), which act as the driving force for our decisions. He was able to apply this research to economic theory, leading to the formation of behavioral economics and a Nobel Prize for Kahneman in 2002.

In the years since, the study of heuristics has grown in popularity with economists and in cognitive psychology. Gerd Gigerenzer’s research , for example, challenges the idea that heuristics lead to errors or flawed thinking. He argues that heuristics are actually indicators that human beings are able to make decisions more effectively without following the traditional rules of logic. His research seems to indicate that heuristics lead us to the right answer most of the time.

Types of heuristics

Heuristics are everywhere, whether we notice them or not. There are hundreds of heuristics at play in the human brain, and they interact with one another constantly. To understand how these heuristics can help you, start by learning some of the more common types of heuristics.

Recognition heuristic

The recognition heuristic uses what we already know (or recognize) as a criterion for decisions. The concept is simple: When faced with two choices, you’re more likely to choose the item you recognize versus the one you don’t.

This is the very base-level concept behind branding your business, and we see it in all well-known companies. Businesses develop a brand messaging strategy in the hopes that when you’re faced with buying their product or buying someone else's, you recognize their product, have a positive association with it, and choose that one. For example, if you’re going to grab a soda and there are two different cans in the fridge, one a Coca-Cola, and the other a soda you’ve never heard of, you are more likely to choose the Coca-Cola simply because you know the name.

Familiarity heuristic

The familiarity heuristic is a mental shortcut where individuals prefer options or information that is familiar to them. This heuristic is based on the notion that familiar items are seen as safer or superior. It differs from the recognition heuristic, which relies solely on whether an item is recognized. The familiarity heuristic involves a deeper sense of comfort and understanding, as opposed to just recognizing something.

An example of this heuristic is seen in investment decisions. Investors might favor well-known companies over lesser-known ones, influenced more by brand familiarity than by an objective assessment of the investment's potential. This tendency showcases how the familiarity heuristic can lead to suboptimal choices, as it prioritizes comfort and recognition over a thorough evaluation of all available options.

Availability heuristic

The availability heuristic is a cognitive bias where people judge the frequency or likelihood of events based on how easily similar instances come to mind. This mental shortcut depends on the most immediate examples that pop into one's mind when considering a topic or decision. The ease of recalling these instances often leads to a distorted perception of their actual frequency, as recent, dramatic, or emotionally charged memories tend to be more memorable.

A notable example of the availability heuristic is the public's reaction to shark attacks. When the media reports on shark attacks, these incidents become highly memorable due to their dramatic nature, leading people to overestimate the risk of such events. This heightened perception is despite statistical evidence showing the rarity of shark attacks. The result is an exaggerated fear and a skewed perception of the actual danger of swimming in the ocean.

Representativeness heuristic

The representativeness heuristic is when we try to assign an object to a specific category or idea based on past experiences. Oftentimes, this comes up when we meet people—our first impression. We expect certain things (such as clothing and credentials) to indicate that a person behaves or lives a certain way.

Without proper awareness, this heuristic can lead to discrimination in the workplace. For example, representativeness heuristics might lead us to believe that a job candidate from an Ivy League school is more qualified than one from a state university, even if their qualifications show us otherwise. This is because we expect Ivy League graduates to act a certain way, such as by being more hard-working or intelligent. Of course, in our rational brains, we know this isn’t the case. That’s why it’s important to be aware of this heuristic, so you can use logical thinking to combat potential biases.

Anchoring and adjustment heuristic

Used in finance for economic forecasting, anchoring and adjustment is when you start with an initial piece of information (the anchor) and continue adjusting until you reach an acceptable decision. The challenge is that sometimes the anchor ends up not being a good enough value to begin with. In other words, you choose the anchor based on unknown biases and then make further decisions based on this faulty assumption.

Anchoring and adjustment are often used in pricing, especially with SaaS companies. For example, a displayed, three-tiered pricing model shows you how much you get for each price point. The layout is designed to make it look like you won’t get much for the lower price, and you don’t necessarily need the highest price, so you choose the mid-level option (the original target). The anchors are the low price (suggesting there’s not much value here) and the high price (which shows that you’re getting a "discount" if you choose another option). Thanks to those two anchors, you feel like you’re getting a lot of value, no matter what you spend.

Affect heuristic

You know the advice; think with your heart. That’s the affect heuristic in action, where you make a decision based on what you’re feeling. Emotions are important ways to understand the world around us, but using them to make decisions is irrational and can impact your work.

For example, let’s say you’re about to ask your boss for a promotion. As a product marketer, you’ve made a huge impact on the company by helping to build a community of enthusiastic, loyal customers. But the day before you have your performance review , you find out that a small project you led for a new product feature failed. You decide to skip the conversation asking for a raise and instead double down on how you can improve.

In this example, you’re using the affect heuristic to base your entire performance on the failure of one small project—even though the rest of your performance (building that profitable community) is much more impactful than a new product feature. If you weighed the options rationally, you would see that asking for a raise is still a logical choice. But instead, the fear of asking for a raise after a failure felt like too big a trade-off.

Satisficing

Satisficing is when you accept an available option that’s satisfactory (i.e., just fine) instead of trying to find the best possible solution. In other words, you’re settling. This creates a “bounded rationality,” where you’re constrained by the choices that are good-enough, instead of pushing past the limits to discover more. This isn’t always negative—for lower-impact scenarios, it might not make sense to invest time and energy into finding the optimal choice. But there are also times when this heuristic kicks in and you end up settling for less than what’s possible.

For example, let’s say you’re a project manager planning the budget for the next fiscal year. Instead of looking at previous spend and revenue, you satisfice and base the budget off projections, assuming that will be good enough. But without factoring in historical data, your budget isn’t going to be as equipped to manage hiccups or unexpected changes. In this case, you can mitigate satisficing with a logically-based data review that, while longer, will produce a more accurate and thoughtful budget plan.

Trial and error heuristic

The trial and error heuristic is a problem-solving method where solutions are found through repeated experimentation. It's used when a clear path to the solution isn't known, relying on iterative learning from failures and adjustments.

For example, a chef might experiment with various ingredient combinations and techniques to perfect a new recipe. Each attempt informs the next, demonstrating how trial and error facilitates discovery in situations without formal guidelines.

Pros and cons of heuristics

Heuristics are effective at helping you get more done quickly, but they also have downsides. Psychologists don’t necessarily agree on whether heuristics and biases are positive or negative. But the argument seems to boil down to these two pros and cons:

Heuristics pros:

Simple heuristics reduce cognitive load, allowing you to accomplish more in less time with fast and frugal decisions. For example, the satisficing heuristic helps you find a "good enough" choice. So if you’re making a complex decision between whether to cut costs or invest in employee well-being , you can use satisficing to find a solution that’s a compromise. The result might not be perfect, but it allows you to take action and get started—you can always adjust later on.

Heuristics cons:

Heuristics create biases. While these cognitive biases enable us to make rapid-fire decisions, they can also lead to rigid, unhelpful beliefs. For example, confirmation bias makes it more likely that you’ll seek out other opinions that agree with your own. This makes it harder to keep an open mind, hear from the other side, and ultimately change your mind—which doesn’t help you build the flexibility and adaptability so important for succeeding in the workplace.

Heuristics and psychology

Heuristics play a pivotal role in psychology, especially in understanding how people make decisions within their cognitive limitations. These mental shortcuts allow for quicker decisions, often necessary in a fast-paced world, but they can sometimes lead to errors in judgment.

The study of heuristics bridges various aspects of psychology, from cognitive processes to behavioral outcomes, and highlights the balance between efficient decision-making and the potential for bias.

Stereotypes and heuristic thinking

Stereotypes are a form of heuristic where individuals make assumptions based on group characteristics, a process analyzed in both English and American psychology.

While these generalizations can lead to rapid conclusions and rational decisions under certain circumstances, they can also oversimplify complex human behaviors and contribute to prejudiced attitudes. Understanding stereotypes as a heuristic offers insight into the cognitive limitations of the human mind and their impact on social perceptions and interactions.

How heuristics lead to bias

Because heuristics rely on shortcuts and stereotypes, they can often lead to bias. This is especially true in scenarios where cognitive limitations restrict the processing of all relevant information. So how do you combat bias? If you acknowledge your biases, you can usually undo them and maybe even use them to your advantage. There are ways you can hack heuristics, so that they work for you (not against you):

Be aware. Heuristics often operate like a knee-jerk reaction—they’re automatic. The more aware you are, the more you can identify and acknowledge the heuristic at play. From there, you can decide if it’s useful for the current situation, or if a logical decision-making process is best.

Flip the script. When you notice a negative bias, turn it around. For example, confirmation bias is when we look for things to be as we expect. So if we expect our boss to assign us more work than our colleagues, we might always experience our work tasks as unfair. Instead, turn this around by repeating that your boss has your team’s best interests at heart, and you know everyone is working hard. This will re-train your confirmation bias to look for all the ways that your boss is treating you just like everyone else.

Practice mindfulness. Mindfulness helps to build self-awareness, so you know when heuristics are impacting your decisions. For example, when we tap into the empathy gap heuristic, we’re unable to empathize with someone else or a specific situation. However, if we’re mindful, we can be aware of how we’re feeling before we engage. This helps us to see that the judgment stems from our own emotions and probably has nothing to do with the other person.

Examples of heuristics in business

This is all well and good in theory, but how do heuristic decision-making and thought processes show up in the real world? One reason researchers have invested so much time and energy into learning about heuristics is so that they can use them, like in these scenarios:

How heuristics are used in marketing

Effective marketing does so much for a business—it attracts new customers, makes a brand a household name, and converts interest into sales, to name a few. One way marketing teams are able to accomplish all this is by applying heuristics.

Let’s use ambiguity aversion as an example. Ambiguity aversion means you're less likely to choose an item you don’t know. Marketing teams combat this by working to become familiar to their customers. This could include the social media team engaging in a more empathetic or conversational way, or employing technology like chat-bots to show that there’s always someone available to help. Making the business feel more approachable helps the customer feel like they know the brand personally—which lessens ambiguity aversion.

How heuristics are used in business strategy

Have you ever noticed how your CEO seems to know things before they happen? Or that the CFO listens more than they speak? These are indications that they understand people in a deeper way, and are able to engage with their employees and predict outcomes because of it. C-suite level executives are often experts in behavioral science, even if they didn’t study it. They tend to get what makes people tick, and know how to communicate based on these biases. In short, they use heuristics for higher-level decision-making processes and execution. 

This includes business strategy . For example, a startup CEO might be aware of their representativeness bias towards investors—they always look for the person in the room with the  fancy suit or car. But after years in the field, they know logically that this isn’t always true—plenty of their investors have shown up in shorts and sandals. Now, because they’re aware of their bias, they can build it into their investment strategy. Instead of only attending expensive, luxury events, they also attend conferences with like-minded individuals and network among peers. This approach can lead them to a greater variety of investors and more potential opportunities.

Heuristics vs algorithms

Heuristics and algorithms are both used by the brain to reduce the mental effort of decision-making, but they operate a bit differently. Algorithms act as guidelines for specific scenarios. They have a structured process designed to solve that specific problem. Heuristics, on the other hand, are general rules of thumb that help the brain process information and may or may not reach a solution.

For example, let's say you’re cooking a well-loved family recipe. You know the steps inside and out, and you no longer need to reference the instructions. If you’re following a recipe step-by-step, you’re using an algorithm. If, however, you decide on a whim to sub in some of your fresh garden vegetables because you think it will taste better, you’re using a heuristic.

How to use heuristics to make better decisions

Heuristics can help us make decisions quickly and with less cognitive strain. While they can be efficient, they sometimes lead to errors in judgment. Understanding how to use heuristics effectively can improve decision-making, especially in complex or uncertain situations.

Take time to think

Rushing often leads to reliance on automatic heuristics, which might not always be suitable. To make better decisions, slow down your thinking process. Take a step back, breathe, and allow yourself a moment of distraction. This pause can provide a fresh perspective and help you notice details or angles you might have missed initially.

Clarify your objectives

When making a decision, it's important to understand the ultimate goal. Our automatic decision-making processes tend to favor immediate benefits, sometimes overlooking long-term impacts or the needs of others involved. Consider the broader implications of your decision. Who else is affected? Is there a common objective that benefits all parties? Such considerations can lead to more holistic and effective decisions.

Manage your emotional influences

Emotions significantly influence our decision-making, often without our awareness. Fast decisions are particularly prone to emotional biases. Acknowledge your feelings, but also separate them from the facts at hand. Are you making a decision based on solid information or emotional reactions? Distinguishing between the two can lead to more rational and balanced choices.

Beware of binary thinking

All-or-nothing thinking is a common heuristic trap, where we see decisions as black or white with no middle ground. However, real-life decisions often have multiple paths and possibilities. It's important to recognize this complexity. There might be compromises or alternative options that weren't initially considered. By acknowledging the spectrum of possibilities, you can make more nuanced and effective decisions.

Heuristic FAQs

What is heuristic thinking.

Heuristic thinking refers to a method of problem-solving, learning, or discovery that employs a practical approach—often termed a "rule of thumb"—to make decisions quickly. Heuristic thinking is a type of cognition that humans use subconsciously to make decisions and judgments with limited time.

What is a heuristic evaluation?

A heuristic evaluation is a usability inspection method used in the fields of user interface (UI) and user experience (UX) design. It involves evaluators examining the interface and judging its compliance with recognized usability principles, known as heuristics. These heuristics serve as guidelines to identify usability problems in a design, making the evaluation process more systematic and comprehensive.

What are computer heuristics?

Computer heuristics are algorithms used to solve complex problems or make decisions where an exhaustive search is impractical. In fields like artificial intelligence and cybersecurity, these heuristic methods allow for efficient problem-solving and decision-making, often based on trial and error or rule-of-thumb strategies.

What are heuristics in psychology?

In psychology, heuristics are quick mental rules for making decisions. They are important in social psychology for understanding how we think and decide. Figures like Kahneman and Tversky, particularly in their work "Judgment Under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases," have influenced the study of heuristics in psychology.

Learn heuristics, de-mystify your brain

Your brain doesn’t actually work in mysterious ways. In reality, researchers know why we do a lot of the things we do. Heuristics help us to understand the choices we make that don’t make much sense. Once you understand heuristics, you can also learn to use them to your advantage—both in business, and in life. 

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What Are Heuristics?

Understanding heuristics.

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Heuristics: Definition, Pros & Cons, and Examples

James Chen, CMT is an expert trader, investment adviser, and global market strategist.

Heuristics are mental shortcuts that help people make quick decisions. They are rules or methods that help people use reason and past experience to solve problems efficiently. Commonly used to simplify problems and avoid cognitive overload, heuristics are part of how the human brain evolved and is wired, allowing individuals to quickly reach reasonable conclusions or solutions to complex problems. These solutions may not be optimal ones but are often sufficient given limited timeframes and calculative capacity.

These cognitive shortcuts feature prominently in behavioral economics .

Key Takeaways

• Heuristics are mental shortcuts for solving problems in a quick way that delivers a result that is sufficient enough to be useful given time constraints.
• Investors and financial professionals use a heuristic approach to speed up analysis and investment decisions.
• Heuristics can lead to poor decision-making based on a limited data set, but the speed of decisions can sometimes make up for the disadvantages.
• Behavioral economics has focused on heuristics as one limitation of human beings behaving like rational actors.
• Availability, anchoring, confirmation bias, and the hot hand fallacy are some examples of heuristics people use in their economic lives.

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People employ heuristics naturally due to the evolution of the human brain. The brain can only process so much information at once and therefore must employ various shortcuts or practical rules of thumb . We would not get very far if we had to stop to think about every little detail or collect every piece of available information and integrate it into an analysis.

Heuristics therefore facilitate timely decisions that may not be the absolute best ones but are appropriate enough. Individuals are constantly using this sort of intelligent guesswork, trial and error, process of elimination, and past experience to solve problems or chart a course of action. In a world that is increasingly complex and overloaded with big data, heuristic methods make decision-making simpler and faster through shortcuts and good-enough calculations.

First identified in economics by the political scientist and organizational scholar Herbert Simon in his work on bounded rationality, heuristics have now become a cornerstone of behavioral economics.

Rather than subscribing to the idea that economic behavior was rational and based upon all available information to secure the best possible outcome for an individual ("optimizing"), Simon believed decision-making was about achieving outcomes that were "good enough" for the individual based on their limited information and balancing the interests of others. Simon called this " satisficing ," a portmanteau of the words "satisfy" and "suffice."

Advantages and Disadvantages of Using Heuristics

The main advantage to using heuristics is that they allow people to make good enough decisions without having all of the information and without having to undertake complex calculations.

Because humans cannot possibly obtain or process all the information needed to make fully rational decisions, they instead seek to use the information they do have to produce a satisfactory result, or one that is good enough. Heuristics allow people to go beyond their cognitive limits.

Heuristics are also advantageous when speed or timeliness matters—for example, deciding to enter a trade or making a snap judgment about some important decision. Heuristics are thus handy when there is no time to carefully weigh all options and their merits.

Disadvantages

There are also drawbacks to using heuristics. While they may be quick and dirty, they will likely not produce the optimal decision and can also be wrong entirely. Quick decisions without all the information can lead to errors in judgment, and miscalculations can lead to mistakes.

Moreover, heuristics leave us prone to biases that tend to lead us toward irrational economic behavior and sway our understanding of the world. Such heuristics have been identified and cataloged by the field of behavioral economics.

Quick & easy

Allows decision-making that goes beyond our cognitive capacity

Allows for snap judgments when time is limited

Often inaccurate

Can lead to systemic biases or errors in judgment

Example of Heuristics in Behavioral Economics

Representativeness.

A popular shortcut method in problem-solving identified in behavioral economics is called representativeness heuristics. Representativeness uses mental shortcuts to make decisions based on past events or traits that are representative of or similar to the current situation.

Say, for example, Fast Food ABC expanded its operations to India and its stock price soared. An analyst noted that India is a profitable venture for all fast-food chains. Therefore, when Fast Food XYZ announced its plan to explore the Indian market the following year, the analyst wasted no time in giving XYZ a "buy" recommendation.

Although their shortcut approach saved reviewing data for both companies, it may not have been the best decision. Fast Food XYZ may have food that is not appealing to Indian consumers, which research would have revealed.

Anchoring and Adjustment

Anchoring and adjustment is another prevalent heuristic approach. With anchoring and adjustment, a person begins with a specific target number or value—called the anchor—and subsequently adjusts that number until an acceptable value is reached over time. The major problem with this method is that if the value of the initial anchor is not the true value, then all subsequent adjustments will be systematically biased toward the anchor and away from the true value.

An example of anchoring and adjustment is a car salesman beginning negotiations with a very high price (that is arguably well above the  fair value ). Because the high price is an anchor, the final price will tend to be higher than if the car salesman had offered a fair or low price to start.

Availability (Recency) Heuristic

The availability (or recency) heuristic is an issue where people give too much weight to the probability of an event happening again if it recently has occurred. For instance, if a shark attack is reported in the news, those headlines make the event salient and can lead people to stay away from the water, even though shark attacks remain very rare.

Another example is the case of the " hot hand ," or the sense that following a string of successes, an individual is likely to continue being successful. Whether at the casino, in the markets, or playing basketball, the hot hand has been debunked. A string of recent good luck does not alter the overall probability of events occurring.

Confirmation Bias

Confirmation bias is a well-documented heuristic whereby people give more weight to information that fits with their existing worldviews or beliefs. At the same time, information that contradicts these beliefs is discounted or rejected.

Investors should be aware of their own tendency toward confirmation bias so that they can overcome poor decision-making, missing chances, and avoid falling prey to bubbles . Seeking out contrarian views and avoiding affirmative questions are two ways to counteract confirmation bias.

Hindsight Bias

Hindsight is always 20/20. However, the hindsight bias leads us to forget that we made incorrect predictions or estimates prior to them occurring. Rather, we become convinced that we had accurately predicted an event before it occurred, even when we did not. This can lead to overconfidence for making future predictions, or regret for not taking past opportunities.

Stereotypes

Stereotypes are a kind of heuristic that allows us to form opinions or judgments about people whom we have never met. In particular, stereotyping takes group-level characteristics about certain social groups—often ones that are racist, sexist, or otherwise discriminatory—and casts those characteristics onto all of the members in that group, regardless of their individual personalities, beliefs, skills, or behaviors.

By imposing oversimplified beliefs onto people, we can quickly judge potential interactions with them or individual outcomes of those people. However, these judgments are often plain wrong, derogatory, and perpetuate social divisions and exclusions.

Heuristics were first identified and taken seriously by scholars in the middle of the 20th century with the work of Herbert Simon, who asked why individuals and firms don't act like rational actors in the real world, even with market pressures punishing irrational decisions. Simon found that corporate managers do not usually optimize but instead rely on a set of heuristics or shortcuts to get the job done in a way that is good enough (to "satisfice").

Later, in the 1970s and '80s, psychologists Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman working at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, built off of Herbert Simon's work and developed what is known as Prospect Theory . A cornerstone of behavioral economics, Prospect Theory catalogs several heuristics used subconsciously by people as they make financial evaluations.

One major finding is that people are loss-averse —that losses loom larger than gains (i.e., the pain of losing $50 is far more than the pleasure of receiving $50). Here, people adopt a heuristic to avoid realizing losses, sometimes spurring them to take excessive risks in order to do so—but often leading to even larger losses.

More recently, behavioral economists have tried to develop policy measures or "nudges" to help correct people's irrational use of heuristics in order to help them achieve more optimal outcomes—for instance, by having people enroll in a retirement savings plan by default instead of having to opt in.

What Are the Types of Heuristics?

To date, several heuristics have been identified by behavioral economics—or else developed to aid people in making otherwise complex decisions. In behavioral economics, representativeness, anchoring and adjustment, and availability (recency) are among the most widely cited. Heuristics may be categorized in many ways, such as cognitive versus emotional biases or errors in judgment versus errors in calculation.

What Is Heuristic Thinking?

Heuristic thinking uses mental shortcuts—often unconsciously—to quickly and efficiently make otherwise complex decisions or judgments. These can be in the form of a "rule of thumb" (e.g., saving 5% of your income in order to have a comfortable retirement) or cognitive processes that we are largely unaware of like the availability bias.

What Is Another Word for Heuristic?

Heuristic may also go by the following terms: rule of thumb; mental shortcut; educated guess; or satisfice.

How Does a Heuristic Differ From an Algorithm?

An algorithm is a step-by-step set of instructions that are followed to achieve some goal or outcome, often optimizing that outcome. They are formalized and can be expressed as a formula or "recipe." As such, they are reproducible in the sense that an algorithm will always provide the same output, given the same input.

A heuristic amounts to an educated guess or gut feeling. Rather than following a set of rules or instructions, a heuristic is a mental shortcut. Moreover, it often produces sub-optimal and even irrational outcomes that may differ even when given the same input.

What Are Computer Heuristics?

In computer science, a heuristic refers to a method of solving a problem that proves to be quicker or more efficient than traditional methods. This may involve using approximations rather than precise calculations or techniques that circumvent otherwise computationally intensive routines.

Heuristics are practical rules of thumb that manifest as mental shortcuts in judgment and decision-making. Without heuristics, our brains would not be able to function given the complexity of the world, the amount of data to process, and the calculative abilities required to form an optimal decision. Instead, heuristics allow us to make quick, good-enough choices.

However, these choices may also be subject to inaccuracies and systemic biases, such as those identified by behavioral economics.

Simon, Herbert. " Herbert Simon, Innovation, and Heuristics ." Mind & Society, vol. 17, 2019, pp. 97-109.

Kahneman, Daniel, and Tversky, Amos. " Prospect Theory: An Analysis of Decision Under Risk ." The Econometric Society, vol. 47, no. 2, 1979, pp. 263-292.

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Heuristics: The Psychology of Mental Shortcuts

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Heuristics (also called “mental shortcuts” or “rules of thumb") are efficient mental processes that help humans solve problems and learn new concepts. These processes make problems less complex by ignoring some of the information that’s coming into the brain, either consciously or unconsciously. Today, heuristics have become an influential concept in the areas of judgment and decision-making.

Key Takeaways: Heuristics

• Heuristics are efficient mental processes (or "mental shortcuts") that help humans solve problems or learn a new concept.
• In the 1970s, researchers Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman identified three key heuristics: representativeness, anchoring and adjustment, and availability.
• The work of Tversky and Kahneman led to the development of the heuristics and biases research program.

History and Origins

Gestalt psychologists postulated that humans solve problems and perceive objects based on heuristics. In the early 20th century, the psychologist Max Wertheimer identified laws by which humans group objects together into patterns (e.g. a cluster of dots in the shape of a rectangle).

The heuristics most commonly studied today are those that deal with decision-making. In the 1950s, economist and political scientist Herbert Simon published his A Behavioral Model of Rational Choice , which focused on the concept of on bounded rationality : the idea that people must make decisions with limited time, mental resources, and information.

In 1974, psychologists Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman pinpointed specific mental processes used to simplify decision-making. They showed that humans rely on a limited set of heuristics when making decisions with information about which they are uncertain—for example, when deciding whether to exchange money for a trip overseas now or a week from today. Tversky and Kahneman also showed that, although heuristics are useful, they can lead to errors in thinking that are both predictable and unpredictable.

In the 1990s, research on heuristics, as exemplified by the work of Gerd Gigerenzer’s research group, focused on how factors in the environment impact thinking–particularly, that the strategies the mind uses are influenced by the environment–rather than the idea that the mind uses mental shortcuts to save time and effort.

Significant Psychological Heuristics

Tversky and Kahneman’s 1974 work, Judgment under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases , introduced three key characteristics: representativeness, anchoring and adjustment, and availability. 

The  representativeness  heuristic allows people to judge the likelihood that an object belongs in a general category or class based on how similar the object is to members of that category.

To explain the representativeness heuristic, Tversky and Kahneman provided the example of an individual named Steve, who is “very shy and withdrawn, invariably helpful, but with little interest in people or reality. A meek and tidy soul, he has a need for order and structure, and a passion for detail.” What is the probability that Steve works in a specific occupation (e.g. librarian or doctor)? The researchers concluded that, when asked to judge this probability, individuals would make their judgment based on how similar Steve seemed to the stereotype of the given occupation.

The anchoring and adjustment heuristic allows people to estimate a number by starting at an initial value (the “anchor”) and adjusting that value up or down. However, different initial values lead to different estimates, which are in turn influenced by the initial value.

To demonstrate the anchoring and adjustment heuristic, Tversky and Kahneman asked participants to estimate the percentage of African countries in the UN. They found that, if participants were given an initial estimate as part of the question (for example, is the real percentage higher or lower than 65%?), their answers were rather close to the initial value, thus seeming to be "anchored" to the first value they heard.

The availability heuristic allows people to assess how often an event occurs or how likely it will occur, based on how easily that event can be brought to mind. For example, someone might estimate the percentage of middle-aged people at risk of a heart attack by thinking of the people they know who have had heart attacks.

Tversky and Kahneman's findings led to the development of the heuristics and biases research program. Subsequent works by researchers have introduced a number of other heuristics.

The Usefulness of Heuristics

There are several theories for the usefulness of heuristics. The  accuracy-effort trade-off   theory  states that humans and animals use heuristics because processing every piece of information that comes into the brain takes time and effort. With heuristics, the brain can make faster and more efficient decisions, albeit at the cost of accuracy. 

Some suggest that this theory works because not every decision is worth spending the time necessary to reach the best possible conclusion, and thus people use mental shortcuts to save time and energy. Another interpretation of this theory is that the brain simply does not have the capacity to process everything, and so we  must  use mental shortcuts.

Another explanation for the usefulness of heuristics is the  ecological rationality theory. This theory states that some heuristics are best used in specific environments, such as uncertainty and redundancy. Thus, heuristics are particularly relevant and useful in specific situations, rather than at all times.

• Gigerenzer, G., and Gaissmeier, W. “Heuristic decision making.” Annual Review of Psychology , vol. 62, 2011, pp. 451-482.
• Hertwig, R., and Pachur, T. “Heuristics, history of.” In International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences, 2 Edition nd , Elsevier, 2007.
• “Heuristics representativeness.” Cognitive Consonance.
• Simon. H. A. “A behavioral model of rational choice.” The Quarterly Journal of Economics , vol. 69, no. 1, 1955, pp. 99-118.
• Tversky, A., and Kahneman, D. “Judgment under uncertainty: Heuristics and biases.” Science , vol. 185, no. 4157, pp. 1124-1131.
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Why do we take mental shortcuts?

What are heuristics.

Heuristics are mental shortcuts that can facilitate problem-solving and probability judgments. These strategies are generalizations, or rules-of-thumb, that reduce cognitive load. They can be effective for making immediate judgments, however, they often result in irrational or inaccurate conclusions.

Where this bias occurs

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Most of us work & live in environments that aren’t optimized for solid decision-making. We work with organizations of all kinds to identify sources of cognitive bias & develop tailored solutions.

We use heuristics in all sorts of situations. One type of heuristic, the availability heuristic , often happens when we’re attempting to judge the frequency with which a certain event occurs. Say, for example, someone asked you whether more tornadoes occur in Kansas or Nebraska. Most of us can easily call to mind an example of a tornado in Kansas: the tornado that whisked Dorothy Gale off to Oz in Frank L. Baum’s The Wizard of Oz . Although it’s fictional, this example comes to us easily. On the other hand, most people have a lot of trouble calling to mind an example of a tornado in Nebraska. This leads us to believe that tornadoes are more common in Kansas than in Nebraska. However, the states actually report similar levels. 1

Individual effects

The thing about heuristics is that they aren’t always wrong. As generalizations, there are many situations where they can yield accurate predictions or result in good decision-making. However, even if the outcome is favorable, it was not achieved through logical means. When we use heuristics, we risk ignoring important information and overvaluing what is less relevant. There’s no guarantee that using  heuristics will work out and, even if it does, we’ll be making the decision for the wrong reason. Instead of basing it on reason, our behavior is resulting from a mental shortcut with no real rationale to support it.

Systemic effects

Heuristics become more concerning when applied to politics, academia, and economics. We may all resort to heuristics from time to time, something that is true even of members of important institutions who are tasked with making large, influential decisions. It is necessary for these figures to have a comprehensive understanding of the biases and heuristics that can affect our behavior, so as to promote accuracy on their part.

How it affects product

Heuristics can be useful in product design. Specifically, because heuristics are intuitive to us, they can be applied to create a more user-friendly experience and one that is more valuable to the customer. For example, color psychology is a phenomenon explaining how our experiences with different colors and color families can prime certain emotions or behaviors. Taking advantage of the representativeness heuristic, one could choose to use passive colors (blue or green) or more active colors (red, yellow, orange) depending on the goals of the application or product. 18 For example, if a developer is trying to evoke a feeling of calm for their app that provides guided meditations, they may choose to make the primary colors of the program light blues and greens. Colors like red and orange are more emotionally energizing and may be useful in settings like gyms or crossfit programs. 

By integrating heuristics into products we can enhance the user experience. If an application, device, or item includes features that make it feel intuitive, easy to navigate and familiar, customers will be more inclined to continue to use it and recommend it to others. Appealing to those mental shortcuts we can minimize the chances of user error or frustration with a product that is overly complicated.

Heuristics and AI

Artificial intelligence and machine learning tools already use the power of heuristics to inform its output. In a nutshell, simple AI tools operate based on a set of built in rules and sometimes heuristics! These are encoded within the system thus aiding in decision-making and the presentation of learning material. Heuristic algorithms can be used to solve advanced computational problems, providing efficient and approximate solutions.  Like in humans, the use of heuristics can result in error, and thus must be used with caution. However, machine learning tools and AI can be useful in supporting human decision-making, especially when clouded by emotion, bias or irrationality due to our own susceptibility to heuristics. 

Why it happens

In their paper “Judgment Under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases” 2 , Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky identified three different kinds of heuristics: availability, representativeness, as well as anchoring and adjustment. Each type of heuristic is used for the purpose of reducing the mental effort needed to make a decision, but they occur in different contexts.

Availability heuristic

The availability heuristic, as defined by Kahneman and Tversky, is the mental shortcut used for making frequency or probability judgments based on “the ease with which instances or occurrences can be brought to mind”. 3 This was touched upon in the previous example, judging the frequency with which tornadoes occur in Kansas relative to Nebraska. 3

The availability heuristic occurs because certain memories come to mind more easily than others. In Kahneman and Tversky’s example participants were asked if more words in the English language start with the letter K or have K as the third letter  Interestingly, most participants responded with the former when in actuality, it is the latter that is true. The idea being that it is much more difficult to think of words that have K as the third letter than it is to think of words that start with K. 4 In this case,  words that begin with K are more readily available to us than words with the K as the third letter.

Representativeness heuristic

Individuals tend to classify events into categories, which, as illustrated by Kahneman and Tversky, can result in our use of the representativeness heuristic. When we use this heuristic, we categorize events or objects based on how they relate to instances we are already familiar with.  Essentially, we have built our own categories, which we use to make predictions about novel situations or people. 5 For example, if someone we meet in one of our university lectures looks and acts like what we believe to be a stereotypical medical student, we may judge the probability that they are studying medicine as highly likely, even without any hard evidence to support that assumption.

The representativeness heuristic is associated with prototype theory. 6 This prominent theory in cognitive science, the prototype theory explains object and identity recognition. It suggests that we categorize different objects and identities in our memory. For example, we may have a category for chairs, a category for fish, a category for books, and so on. Prototype theory posits that we develop prototypical examples for these categories by averaging every example of a given category we encounter. As such, our prototype of a chair should be the most average example of a chair possible, based on our experience with that object. This process aids in object identification because we compare every object we encounter against the prototypes stored in our memory. The more the object resembles the prototype, the more confident we are that it belongs in that category. 

Prototype theory may give rise to the representativeness heuristic as it is in situations when a particular object or event is viewed as similar to the prototype stored in our memory, which leads us to classify the object or event into the category represented by that prototype. To go back to the previous example, if your peer closely resembles your prototypical example of a med student, you may place them into that category based on the prototype theory of object and identity recognition. This, however, causes you to commit the representativeness heuristic.

Anchoring and adjustment heuristic

Another heuristic put forth by Kahneman and Tversky in their initial paper is the anchoring and adjustment heuristic. 7 This heuristic describes how, when estimating a certain value, we tend to give an initial value, then adjust it by increasing or decreasing our estimation. However, we often get stuck on that initial value – which is referred to as anchoring – this results in us making insufficient adjustments. Thus, the adjusted value is biased in favor of the initial value we have anchored to.

In an example of the anchoring and adjustment heuristic, Kahneman and Tversky gave participants questions such as “estimate the number of African countries in the United Nations (UN).” A wheel labeled with numbers from 0-100 was spun, and participants were asked to say whether or not the number the wheel landed on was higher or lower than their answer to the question. Then, participants were asked to estimate the number of African countries in the UN, independent from the number they had spun. Regardless, Kahneman and Tversky found that participants tended to anchor onto the random number obtained by spinning the wheel. The results showed that  when the number obtained by spinning the wheel was 10, the median estimate given by participants was 25, while, when the number obtained from the wheel was 65, participants’ median estimate was 45.8.

A 2006 study by Epley and Gilovich, “The Anchoring and Adjustment Heuristic: Why the Adjustments are Insufficient” 9 investigated the causes of this heuristic. They illustrated that anchoring often occurs because the new information that we anchor to is more accessible than other information Furthermore, they provided empirical evidence to demonstrate that our adjustments tend to be insufficient because they require significant mental effort, which we are not always motivated to dedicate to the task. They also found that providing incentives for accuracy led participants to make more sufficient adjustments. So, this particular heuristic generally occurs when there is no real incentive to provide an accurate response.

Quick and easy

Though different in their explanations, these three types of heuristics allow us to respond automatically without much effortful thought. They provide an immediate response and do not use up much of our mental energy, which allows us to dedicate mental resources to other matters that may be more pressing. In that way, heuristics are efficient, which is a big reason why we continue to use them. That being said, we should be mindful of how much we rely on them because there is no guarantee of their accuracy.

Why it is important

As illustrated by Tversky and Kahneman, using heuristics can cause us to engage in various cognitive biases and commit certain fallacies. 10 As a result, we may make poor decisions, as well as inaccurate judgments and predictions. Awareness of heuristics can aid us in avoiding them, which will ultimately lead us to engage in more adaptive behaviors.

How to avoid it

Heuristics arise from automatic System 1 thinking. It is a common misconception that errors in judgment can be avoided by relying exclusively on System 2 thinking. However, as pointed out by Kahneman, neither System 2 nor System 1 are infallible. 11   While System 1 can result in relying on heuristics leading to certain biases, System 2 can give rise to other biases, such as the confirmation bias . 12 In truth, Systems 1 and 2 complement each other, and using them together can lead to more rational decision-making. That is, we shouldn’t make judgments automatically, without a second thought, but we shouldn’t overthink things to the point where we’re looking for specific evidence to support our stance. Thus, heuristics can be avoided by making judgments more effortfully, but in doing so, we should attempt not to overanalyze the situation.

How it all started

The first three heuristics – availability, representativeness, as well as anchoring and adjustment – were identified by Tverksy and Kahneman in their 1974 paper, “Judgment Under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases”. 13 In addition to presenting these heuristics and their relevant experiments, they listed the respective biases each can lead to.

For instance, upon defining the availability heuristic, they demonstrated how it may lead to illusory correlation , which is the erroneous belief that two events frequently co-occur. Kahneman and Tversky made the connection by illustrating how the availability heuristic can cause us to over- or under-estimate the frequency with which certain events occur. This may result in drawing correlations between variables when in reality there are none.  

Referring to our tendency to overestimate our accuracy making probability judgments, Kahneman and Tversky also discussed how the illusion of validity is facilitated by the representativeness heuristic. The more representative an object or event is, the more confident we feel in predicting certain outcomes. The illusion of validity, as it works with the representativeness heuristic, can be demonstrated by our assumptions of others based on past experiences. If you have only ever had good experiences with people from Canada, you will be inclined to judge most Canadians as pleasant. In reality, your small sample size cannot account for the whole population. Representativeness is not the only factor in determining the probability of an outcome or event, meaning we should not be as confident in our predictive abilities.

Example 1 – Advertising

Those in the field of advertising should have a working understanding of heuristics as consumers often rely on these shortcuts when making decisions about purchases. One heuristic that frequently comes into play in the realm of advertising is the scarcity heuristic . When assessing the value of something, we often fall back on this heuristic, leading us to believe that the rarity or exclusiveness of an object contributes to its value.

A 2011 study by Praveen Aggarwal, Sung Yul Jun, and Jong Ho Huh evaluated the impact of “scarcity messages” on consumer behavior. They found that both “limited quantity” and “limited time” advertisements influence consumers’ intentions to purchase, but “limited quantity” messages are more effective. This explains why people get so excited over the one-day-only Black Friday sales, and why the countdowns of units available on home shopping television frequently lead to impulse buys. 14

Knowledge of the scarcity heuristic can help businesses thrive, as “limited quantity” messages make potential consumers competitive and increase their intentions to purchase. 15 This marketing technique can be a useful tool for bolstering sales and bringing attention to your business.

Example 2 – Stereotypes

One of the downfalls of heuristics is that they have the potential to lead to stereotyping, which is often harmful. Kahneman and Tversky illustrated how the representativeness heuristic might result in the propagation of stereotypes. The researchers presented participants with a personality sketch of a fictional man named Steve followed by a list of possible occupations. Participants were tasked with ranking the likelihood of each occupation being Steve’s. Since the personality sketch described Steve as shy, helpful, introverted, and organized, participants tended to indicate that it was probable that he was a  librarian. 16 In this particular case the stereotype is less harmful than many others, however it accurately illustrates the link between heuristics and stereotypes.

Published in 1989, Patricia Devine’s paper “Stereotypes and Prejudice: Their Automatic and Controlled Components” illustrates how, even among people who are low in prejudice, rejecting stereotypes requires a certain level of motivation and cognitive capacity. 17 We typically use heuristics in order to avoid exerting too much mental energy, specifically when we are not sufficiently motivated to dedicate mental resources to the task at hand. Thus, when we lack the mental capacity to make a judgment or decision effortfully, we may rely upon automatic heuristic responses and, in doing so, risk propagating stereotypes.

Stereotypes are an example of how heuristics can go wrong. Broad generalizations do not always apply, and their continued use can have serious consequences. This underscores the importance of effortful judgment and decision-making, as opposed to automatic.

Heuristics are mental shortcuts that allow us to make quick judgment calls based on generalizations or rules of thumb.

Heuristics, in general, occur because they are efficient ways of responding when we are faced with problems or decisions. They come about automatically, allowing us to allocate our mental energy elsewhere. Specific heuristics occur in different contexts; the availability heuristic happens because we remember certain memories better than others, the representativeness heuristic can be explained by prototype theory, and the anchoring and adjustment heuristic occurs due to lack of incentive to put in the effort required for sufficient adjustment.

The scarcity heuristic, which refers to how we value items more when they are limited, can be used to the advantage of businesses looking to increase sales. Research has shown that advertising objects as “limited quantity” increases consumers' competitiveness and their intentions to buy the item.

While heuristics can be useful, we should exert caution, as they are generalizations that may lead us to propagate stereotypes ranging from inaccurate to harmful.

Putting more effort into decision-making instead of making decisions automatically can help us avoid heuristics. Doing so requires more mental resources, but it will lead to more rational choices.

Related TDL articles

What are heuristics.

This interview with The Decision Lab’s Managing Director Sekoul Krastev delves into the history of heuristics, their applications in the real world, and their consequences, both positive and negative.

10 Decision-Making Errors that Hold Us Back at Work

In this article, Dr. Melina Moleskis examines the common decision-making errors that occur in the workplace. Everything from taking in feedback provided by customers to cracking the problems of on-the-fly decision-making, Dr. Moleskis delivers workable solutions that anyone can implement. 

• Gilovich, T., Keltner, D., Chen. S, and Nisbett, R. (2015).  Social Psychology  (4th edition). W.W. Norton and Co. Inc.
• Tversky, A. and Kahneman, D. (1974). Judgment Under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases.  Science . 185(4157), 1124-1131.
• Mervis, C. B., & Rosch, E. (1981). Categorization of natural objects.  Annual Review of Psychology ,  32 (1), 89–115. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.ps.32.020181.000513
• Epley, N., & Gilovich, T. (2006). The anchoring-and-adjustment heuristic.  Psychological Science -Cambridge- ,  17 (4), 311–318.
• System 1 and System 2 Thinking.  The Marketing Society.  https://www.marketingsociety.com/think-piece/system-1-and-system-2-thinking
• Aggarwal, P., Jun, S. Y., & Huh, J. H. (2011). Scarcity messages.  Journal of Advertising ,  40 (3), 19–30.
• Devine, P. G. (1989). Stereotypes and prejudice: their automatic and controlled components.  Journal of Personality and Social Psychology ,  56 (1), 5–18. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.56.1.5
• Kuo, L., Chang, T., & Lai, C.-C. (2022). Research on product design modeling image and color psychological test. Displays, 71, 102108. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.displa.2021.102108

About the Authors

Dan is a Co-Founder and Managing Director at The Decision Lab. He is a bestselling author of Intention - a book he wrote with Wiley on the mindful application of behavioral science in organizations. Dan has a background in organizational decision making, with a BComm in Decision & Information Systems from McGill University. He has worked on enterprise-level behavioral architecture at TD Securities and BMO Capital Markets, where he advised management on the implementation of systems processing billions of dollars per week. Driven by an appetite for the latest in technology, Dan created a course on business intelligence and lectured at McGill University, and has applied behavioral science to topics such as augmented and virtual reality.

Dr. Sekoul Krastev

Sekoul is a Co-Founder and Managing Director at The Decision Lab. He is a bestselling author of Intention - a book he wrote with Wiley on the mindful application of behavioral science in organizations. A decision scientist with a PhD in Decision Neuroscience from McGill University, Sekoul's work has been featured in peer-reviewed journals and has been presented at conferences around the world. Sekoul previously advised management on innovation and engagement strategy at The Boston Consulting Group as well as on online media strategy at Google. He has a deep interest in the applications of behavioral science to new technology and has published on these topics in places such as the Huffington Post and Strategy & Business.

Hindsight Bias

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What Is Heuristics Psychology?

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In the 1950s, a psychologist and Nobel Prize winner, Herbert Simon, found that even though individuals often want to make rational decisions, their cognitive limitations may sway their judgment. Simon hypothesized that to make sense of the world, the human brain develops mental shortcuts that help people make decisions quickly without analyzing all the available information. These mental shortcuts are known as heuristics. 

Heuristic is a Greek word that means "to discover." It is a way to solve a problem by considering your personal experiences. However, at times, one's ability to make decisions and solve problems becomes difficult due to internal emotional or mental health challenges. Understanding heuristics in psychology can help you understand when mental health challenges may interrupt your decision-making and problem-solving abilities.

Heuristics in psychology

An example of heuristics in psychology is when a person takes a mental shortcut to decide why they feel they are not as mature as they should be. Rather than examining why they may feel this way, they may read a book on birth order written by an authority in the field. After reading, they may believe they are immature because they were the last in the birth order. However, this conclusion might not be true. 

Types of heuristics

There are multiple ways individuals use heuristics. Below are several types considered in psychology: 

• Authority Heuristics: Believing someone primarily because they are an authority on the subject 
• Affect Heuristics: Making a snap judgment or quick decision based on a first impression
• Rules of Thumb Heuristics: Solving a problem by using a popular approach so that you don't have to do your own research  
• Scarcity Heuristics: Using a rare point to make it seem more desirable or valuable 
• Familiarity Heuristics: Dealing with a problem by basing it on a similar situation that you are familiar with
• Working Backward: Solving a challenge by working backward in your mind to see how the solution might be found
• Available Heuristics: Judging the situation by using only information available to you 
• Contagious Heuristics: Staying away from an object, person, situation, or source because others say that it is unhealthy or harmful 
• Absurdity Heuristics: Using an unusual or unique problem-solving strategy because the problem itself is unusual 
• An Educated Guess: Solving a problem by using acquired experience and knowledge 
• Consistency Heuristics: Responding to a challenge in a way consistent with your typical way of responding to similar situations

Heuristics in action

Heuristics can allow people to solve problems and make decisions quickly. For instance, as an experienced driver, you may have learned to stop at a stop sign so you don't hit other people or get a ticket. The reasons why people use heuristics and how they choose the correct type of heuristics are complex and depend on the situation. Below are a few examples. 

Biased decisions

Some experts believe that heuristics can lead to bias. For example, if you use a familiarity heuristic, the rule of thumb, or consistency heuristic, you may jump to conclusions instead of giving the decision further thought. Decisions based on a person's beliefs or experiences may be safer. When you decide based on your prior knowledge or what you believe to be true, you may know more about the potential outcomes. 

Judgment calls

In some cases, heuristics are efficient and useful rules that can help you decide based on positive judgment. However, in other cases, you may want to do further research to make a proper decision. When you are facing a complicated matter, it may be healthier to take some time to consider all angles of the situation before deciding. Making a judgment call in uncertain situations  without a clear perspective can lead to a biased decision. 

Affect heuristics or jumping to a conclusion

People may make decisions based on their cognitive limits, time constraints, and the available information they have at the time. In addition, some people may value making the quickest decision to reduce their time to deal with a challenge. An affect heuristic is often called a snap decision or jumping to conclusions. Although these decisions can sometimes work out, they may also cause bumps along the way, as enough planning may not have gone into the potential outcome, even if it is positive.  

How are heuristics used in everyday life? 

People use everyday heuristics to quickly resolve problems and make decisions using practical solutions. Heuristics allow people to formulate short-term solutions, speed up decision-making, and consider mental shortcuts to make problem-solving easier. You can use heuristics in everyday life by considering your prior knowledge and experience before passing judgment or deciding. You can also use heuristics to learn and expand your understanding of the world. 

When the choice must be made right away, you may choose to make an educated guess or use an availability heuristic. For example, you can use the contagion heuristic by throwing out eggs when you hear that they were recalled due to public sickness. In addition, you might bring a raincoat and umbrella to work when the weather report indicates a rainstorm is imminent, as you know you're uncomfortable when you don't. 

Sometimes, the strategies people use to solve problems and make decisions become clouded by internal emotional challenges or mental health conditions. In these cases, it can be beneficial to talk to a professional to determine whether your strategies are helping or harming you. Cognitive difficulty with memory, mental clarity, and decision-making can indicate a medical or mental health condition. 

What mental illnesses interfere with decision-making? 

Difficulty making decisions can be a sign of a mental health condition like borderline personality disorder (BPD), depression, or anxiety, among others. Human emotions are a central component of a person's internal state and can influence one's ability to  make decisions . If you are overwhelmed by your emotions, you might struggle to tap into the parts of your brain that draw logical conclusions. In addition, if you've been through a traumatic event, your learned experiences may have taught you that many situations are unsafe, causing you to react as though all scenarios are unsafe.  

Anxiety and depressive disorders are the most common mental illnesses worldwide. Globally, anxiety and depression rates have increased by 25% since 2020. This number accounts for 76.2 million more cases of anxiety disorders and 49.4 million cases of depressive disorders, on top of the hundreds of millions already in existence. To understand how anxiety and depression impact the mind, examining their symptoms in more depth can be helpful. 

Signs of a depressive disorder 

Depressive disorders like major depressive disorder (MDD) can cause overwhelming sadness. Other signs of depression can include the following: 

• Feelings of sadness that persist for over two weeks 
• Sleeping more or less than normal 
• Difficulty concentrating
• Chronic fatigue
• Eating more or less than usual
• Isolation or social withdrawal 
• A lack of interest in previously enjoyed activities 
• A feeling of being lost or alone 
• Thoughts of death or suicide

This list of symptoms is not all-inclusive. However, if you notice that you are experiencing these symptoms, it can be beneficial to seek professional therapeutic support. 

Signs of an anxiety disorder 

According to the National Institute of Mental Health, an estimated 19.1% of adults had an anxiety disorder in the past year , and approximately 31.1% of adults in the United States have experienced an anxiety disorder. Signs of an anxiety disorder can include the following: 

• Difficulty falling or staying asleep 
• Loss of appetite
• Rapid heart rate
• Racing thoughts
• Avoidance of certain places or people
• Irritability or aggression
• Stress or extreme worry
• Constant worrying 
• Feeling dizzy or faint
• Heart palpitations
• Twitchiness or shaking
• Nausea or vomiting
• Restlessness or feeling "on edge"
• Tense muscles

Support options 

Heuristics psychology explores the human brain's different strategies to make sense of the world. However, one's ability to make decisions and solve problems can be perceived as difficult when one lives with an anxiety disorder or depression. In these cases, talking to a professional may be advantageous.  

Some people might not seek help because they fear it will be difficult or impossible. Anxiety symptoms can make it scary to leave home, and depression can make it difficult to get out of bed. However, with an online therapy platform like BetterHelp, you may be able to connect with a counselor from home. Working with a provider online allows you to choose between phone, video, or chat sessions and select a session time whenever is convenient for you. 

Research also supports the efficacy of online therapy , showing it can be equally as effective as in-person therapy for those living with depression. 

What is the Heuristic theory in psychology?

Heuristics are mental strategies people rely on to make decisions. There are various types of heuristics, each potentially involving cognitive bias due to the individual’s past experiences, temperament, personality, and other factors. Heuristics are often considered “mental shortcuts” to help individuals reach a decision quickly without having to research, analyze decisions, or partake in rational decision-making. However, heuristics may sometimes lead to irrational choices because human judgment can be biased and flawed. 

What are some examples of Heuristics?

There are several types of heuristics people may use. One of the most common is the recognition heuristic, sometimes called the familiarity heuristic. In this heuristic, someone makes a decision based on which option is most familiar or comfortable to them. An example of the recognition heuristic is someone using their past experiences with a friend to believe that their friend is telling the truth in a situation where they must decide which person is lying between their friend and a stranger. 

What is an example of affect Heuristics in real life?

The affect heuristic occurs when people rely on emotions or feelings to make a choice. This decision is often made so quickly that it seems like a random process. However, it may be based on cognitive biases one has about the supposed mental effort or emotional impact each option has. 

A real-life example is a person deciding what school to attend based on which school their partner attends. If a person chooses a school primarily to be close to their partner, they may be following their heart instead of making rational choices about which school offers the best education for their future. Human beings commonly use the affect heuristic because cognitive biases can easily cloud human judgment. 

What is a Heuristic bias?

Heuristic bias is a cognitive bias that occurs without much mental effort. Brains rely on various processes to make a decision, sometimes taking more effort than one wants to spend on a situation. A cognitive bias can occur when heuristics cause someone to make the wrong decision or make a decision that hurts themselves or others based on their past experiences, behavioral economics, or anchoring and adjustment processes. To make rational choices not based on bias, spending time considering your decisions can be crucial. A pros and cons chart is one way to make a decision not based on cognitive biases. 

How might Heuristics be helpful in daily life?

Heuristics may sometimes be helpful if you need to make a quick decision and don’t have time to consider it in the long term. For example, you might use the scarcity heuristic to decide to purchase two international import items in the store instead of one because you know they may run out soon. 

What are the most used Heuristics?

The most popular heuristics include the scarcity heuristic, familiarity heuristic, and representativeness heuristic. The representativeness heuristic occurs when one makes a decision based on past experiences without analyzing them or using bounded rationality or anchoring and adjustment techniques to decide. For example, someone might use this heuristic when they avoid trying to make new friends because they haven’t had success in the past. They may not be consciously choosing every day not to meet new friends but instead living their life that way because it’s familiar to them. This example combines familiarity and representativeness heuristics. 

How do Heuristics influence our decisions?

Heuristics can influence decisions by causing people to be more likely to consider what is familiar, expected, or scarce, among other desirable traits. Humans developed heuristics as rational actors to guide daily decisions and leave more space for more complex decisions in other areas of life. In some cases, they may be a protective mechanism not to have to consider difficult options that one is not ready to face. For example, someone might use heuristics instead of taking a chance on a new person or opportunity. 

How do you use Heuristics in problem-solving?

There are a few problem-solving heuristics you can use to come to a conclusion, including but not limited to the following: 

• Ask someone else for support in making a decision 
• Restate the problem to understand it better 
• Guess the most logical conclusion 
• Look for patterns in the problem 
• Act out potential solutions 
• Work backward for a solution in your mind 

In addition to these strategies, you can avoid biased heuristics by researching how other people have addressed this problem, checking for hidden assumptions you might be making, and combining your own techniques with the techniques of others. 

What types of problems can be solved by Heuristics?

It may be beneficial to use heuristics to make decisions when you’re in a situation that requires speed to make a decision, such as when shopping, cooking, or estimating the possibility of success. People often use common sense heuristics in daily life, such as using an umbrella when the news anchor says it will rain or you notice it’s cloudy outside.  

When should Heuristics be used?

You can use heuristics in any situation that requires a quick decision, such as deciding what to eat for the day or which friend group to hang out with after work. Heuristics can help avoid overthinking or over-rationalizing a situation. For example, if you spend an hour overanalyzing whether you should eat Cheetos or Doritos, it wouldn’t align with the seriousness of the decision and could delay your overall day or keep you from making more important decisions.

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What Is the Availability Heuristic?

How this mental shortcut affects decisions and leads to bias

Kendra Cherry, MS, is a psychosocial rehabilitation specialist, psychology educator, and author of the "Everything Psychology Book."

Amy Morin, LCSW, is a psychotherapist and international bestselling author. Her books, including "13 Things Mentally Strong People Don't Do," have been translated into more than 40 languages. Her TEDx talk,  "The Secret of Becoming Mentally Strong," is one of the most viewed talks of all time.

• How It Works
• Availability vs. Representativeness
• Effects on Decisions
• How to Avoid It

The availability heuristic is a type of mental shortcut that involves estimating the probability or risk of something based on how easily examples come to mind. If we can think of many examples, then we assume it happens frequently.

Consider the following example of the availability heuristic: Which job do you think is more dangerous—being a police officer or a logger? While high-profile police shootings might lead you to think that cops have the most hazardous job, statistics show that loggers are likelier to die on the job than cops.

When making this type of judgment about relative risk or danger, our brains rely on several strategies to make quick decisions. The availability heuristic is a mental shortcut that helps you make fast, but sometimes incorrect, assessments.

There are all kinds of mental shortcuts, but a common one involves relying on information that comes to mind quickly. This is known as "availability." If you can quickly think of multiple examples of something happening—such as police shootings or airplane crashes—you will believe it is more common.

The availability heuristic, sometimes known as the availability bias, is a type of cognitive bias that can lead to systematic errors in thinking.

How the Availability Heuristic Works

When you are trying to make a decision, a number of related events or situations might immediately spring to the forefront of your thoughts. As a result, you might judge that those events are more frequent or probable than others. You give greater credence to this information and tend to overestimate the probability and likelihood of similar things happening in the future.

For example, after seeing several news reports about car thefts, you might make a judgment that vehicle theft is much more common than it really is in your area. This type of availability heuristic can be helpful and important in decision-making . When faced with a choice, we often lack the time or resources to investigate in greater depth.

Faced with the need for an immediate decision, the availability heuristic allows people to quickly arrive at a conclusion.

How It Can Be Helpful

This can be helpful when you are trying to make a decision or judgment about the world around you. For example, would you say that there are more words in the English language that begin with the letter t or with the letter k ?

You might try to answer this question by thinking of as many words as you can that begin with each letter. Since you can think of more words that begin with t , you might then believe that more words begin with this letter than with k . In this instance, the availability heuristic has led you to a correct answer.

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Examples of the Availability Heuristic

Here are a few scenarios where this could play out in your day-to-day life.

• After reading an article about lottery winners , you overestimate your likelihood of winning the jackpot. You start spending more money than you should each week on lottery tickets.
• After seeing news reports about people losing their jobs , you might start to believe that you are in danger of being laid off. You begin lying awake in bed each night worrying that you are about to be fired.
• After seeing news stories about high-profile child abductions , you believe such tragedies are quite common. You refuse to let your children play outside alone and never let them leave your sight.
• After seeing several television programs on shark attacks , you begin to think such incidences are relatively common. When you go on vacation, you refuse to swim in the ocean because you believe the probability of a shark attack is high.

In another example, researchers have found that people who are more easily able to recall seeing antidepressant advertising were also more likely to give high estimates about the prevalence of depression .

The availability heuristic often makes people overestimate the likelihood of relatively uncommon events. This can affect people's decisions and may even take a toll on their well-being if it leads to distress and worry.

What Causes the Availability Heuristic

The availability heuristic stems from how the brain works. Because our attention and information-processing power is limited, we have to rely on shortcuts to help make understanding the world a little faster and easier.

The trade-off for this ability to make snap judgments is that sometimes our assessments and decisions are inaccurate.

The problem is that certain events tend to stand out in our minds more than others, leading to biased thinking and inaccurate choices.

Excessive media coverage can cause this, but sometimes, the novelty or drama surrounding an event can cause it to become more available in your memory. Because the event is so unusual, it takes on greater significance, which leads you to incorrectly assume that the event is much more common than it is.

Why Some Information Is More Available

Certain information might be more readily available in your mind because it's:

• Something you recently learned
• An event that had a significant impact on you
• Something that you think about frequently
• More salient or easier to remember

Because this information is easier to retrieve from memory, it is more readily accessible when we seek examples to help us estimate the risk or probability of something happening. 

Availability Heuristic vs. Representativeness Heuristic

The brain uses all types of mental shortcuts, and some of them have a few things in common and may sometimes be confused with one another. The availability heuristic, for example, is sometimes confused with what is known as the representativeness heuristic.

The representativeness heuristic is a shortcut in which we estimate the probability of an effect based on how well the current example matches an example we already have in mind. For example, we might base our impressions of a person in a professional role based on the representation of that role we already have in our mind. 

So while representativeness relies on comparing an event to our existing expections, availability relies on basing these estimates on how readily we can call similar events to mind.

Availability Heuristic and Incorrect Decisions

The term was first coined in 1973 by Nobel-prize-winning psychologists Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman. They suggested that the availability heuristic occurs unconsciously and operates under the principle that "if you can think of it, it must be important."

In other words, things that come to mind more easily are believed to be far more common and accurate reflections of the real world.

Common Pitfalls of Availability Heuristic

Like other  heuristics , the availability heuristic can be useful at times. However, it can lead to problems and errors. Reports of child abductions, airplane accidents, and train derailments often lead people to believe that such events are much more typical than they truly are.

For example, after seeing a movie about a nuclear disaster, you might become convinced that a nuclear war or accident is highly likely. After witnessing a car overturned on the side of the road, you might believe that your own likelihood of getting in an accident is very high.

Plus, the longer you stay preoccupied with the event, the more available it will be in your mind, and the more probable you will believe it to be.

Research has shown that the availability bias can contribute to medical misdiagnoses. Physicians might overestimate the likelihood that a person has a specific condition, contributing to diagnostic errors.

How to Avoid the Availability Heuristic

The availability heuristic is an inherent part of how the brain works. It tends to occur automatically without any effort. While being more aware of this heuristic may help you better see how it might affect your choices, experts suggest that awareness of mental biases isn't enough to overcome them.

While there's no way to prevent it from happening, there are strategies that you can use to help make more informed decisions. 

• Give yourself time : Instead of making snap decisions, try to give yourself time to examine the evidence and reach a conclusion.
• Seek out other information : If you only pay attention to information that confirms what you already think (an example of confirmation bias), you may be more likely to rely on readily available examples. Instead, seek out information that might challenge your assumptions.
• Look at statistics : If you want a more reliable estimate, gather statistical information that gives a clearer view of the big picture. Relying on singular anecdotes can lead to inaccuracy, but looking at the overall numbers can give you a better view of the probability something might happen.
• Keep records : If you know you will be basing a decision on a specific type of information (such as promoting employees based on their performance), keep records to track such information rather than relying on memory.

A Word From Verywell

Heuristics play a vital role in how we make decisions and act upon information in the world around us. The availability heuristic can be a helpful tool, but it is also important to remember that it can sometimes lead to incorrect assessments.

Just because something looms large in your memory does not necessarily mean it is more common, so incorporating other tools and strategies into your decision-making process can help you make more accurate choices.

Bureau of Labor Statistics. National Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries in 2021 .

Berthet V, de Gardelle V. The heuristics-and-biases inventory: An open-source tool to explore individual differences in rationality .  Front Psychol . 2023;14:1145246. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1145246

An S. Antidepressant direct-to-consumer advertising and social perception of the prevalence of depression: application of the availability heuristic .  Health Commun . 2008;23(6):499-505. doi:10.1080/10410230802342127

Tversky A, Kahneman D. Availability: A heuristic for judging frequency and probability . Cognitive Psychology . 1973;5(2):207-232. doi:10.1016/0010-0285(73)90033-9

Li P, Cheng ZY, Liu GL. Availability bias causes misdiagnoses by physicians: Direct evidence from a randomized controlled trial .  Intern Med . 2020;59(24):3141-3146. doi:10.2169/internalmedicine.4664-20

PBS News Hour. Making people aware of their implicit biases doesn't usually change minds. But here's what does work .

By Kendra Cherry, MSEd Kendra Cherry, MS, is a psychosocial rehabilitation specialist, psychology educator, and author of the "Everything Psychology Book."

Mental Shortcuts: 5 Ways Heuristics Can Lead to Poor Decisions

How many days would you save when taking the Gotthard Tunnel through the Swiss Alps? At first glance, mental shortcuts such as the answer you just gave in your head seem to work like any shortcut. The Gotthard Tunnel cuts through the Alps and gets us faster from Milan to Zurich. Which is great. As long as we’re happy with trading scenic meandering mountain roads for the pleasure of staring into a tunnel for 57 kilometres. Similarly, mental shortcuts are all about trade-offs. In this post, we’re going to take a look at how our mind cuts corners, its benefits and five ways they might lead to poor decision-making if we misapply them.

What are Mental Shortcuts?

Mental shortcuts, also known as heuristic decision-making , are what our mind uses when we need to answer a difficult question or solve a complex problem quickly. Heuristics allow us to make judgements and come to decisions in a time-saving and efficient manner. The term heuristic is closely related to the Greek word Eureka , ‘I have found it!’ Though, what we find may very well lead to bad decisions. Here’s the psychology behind mental shortcuts.

System 1 and System 2

The human capacity for decision-making is limited by all sorts of factors including the availability of information, the time we have to make a judgement, cognitive ability and biases. Sometimes it seems like our minds can’t keep up. We help ourselves with mental models such as the OODA Loop to make decisions in disorienting situations. In reality, our brain seems to be a bit of a know-it-all.

The “normal state of your mind”, according to famed psychologist Daniel Kahneman, “is that you have intuitive feelings and opinions about almost everything that comes your way”. The reason for this, as Kahneman describes in his bestseller Thinking, Fast and Slow , lies in the two systems operating in our minds. System 1 is the intuitive, fast, instinctive and emotional one. System 2 is much more deliberate and logical, yet slow.

When faced with a complex problem, System 1 simply substitutes the difficult question with an easier one. Consider Kahneman’s example in which the Target Question “How happy are you with your life these days?” becomes the Heuristic Question “What is my mood right now?” The first query — which would probably require writing a whole essay about your definition of ‘happiness’ and factors impacting it over a period of time — is collapsed into a much more accessible matter of intuitive judgement.

Types of Heuristics

Kahneman distinguishes between different types of heuristics. I’ve tried to simplify the main types as follows:

• Availability : Making decisions based on what’s readily available in our mind
• Representativeness : Making judgements by assessing how the situation at hand compares to a familiar mental prototype
• Affect : Making decisions based on how we feel in the moment
• Anchoring & Adjustment : Making judgements based on the first piece of information we receive

Surely, mental shortcuts are generally a positive habit of our minds. We’re faced with so many impressions and micro-decisions on a daily basis. We can’t always stop and send System 2 on a painstaking quest to determine which coffee place to pick or which ice cream flavour best goes with our Cappucino. Heuristics work just fine. Until they don’t.

Mental Shortcuts and Misapplied Heuristics

As useful as decision heuristics can be, they’re still imperfect rules of thumb that can be misapplied. This opens the door to intuitive traps or cognitive biases, hinders analytic thinking and ultimately leads to poor decisions. The concept of Misapplied Heuristics was coined by analytics expert Randy Pherson. Naturally, he looks at mental shortcuts from the perspective of a System 2-focussed analyst. According to Pherson, misapplied heuristics can still “lead to a correct decision based on a non-rigorous thought process”. But only if we’re lucky.

In his Handbook of Analytic Tools & Techniques , he identifies several potential thinking errors. Here are five of the most common Misapplied Heuristics to look out for. We start with the mental shotgun and make our way to premature closure.

1. Mental Shotgun

Somebody sees lights flashing in the sky. They never seen it before. They don’t understand what it is. They say: A UFO! The ‘U’ stands for unidentified. So they say: “I don’t know what it is. It must be aliens from outer space visiting from another plant.” Well, if you don’t know what it is, that’s where your conversation should stop. You don’t then say: “It must be anything.” Neil deGrasse Tyson

Our mind can’t help itself but continuously make assessments. It computes all the time — often more than needed — as we search for quick answers. To illustrate this, Kahneman invokes the image of a shotgun, which can be fired quickly but lacks precision. Imagine numerous birdshot pellets spreading all over the target and beyond. The mental shotgun is a mechanism of the fast and intuitive System 1. But it’s triggered when System 2 is presented with a specific question to be answered. The lack of “precision and control” (Pherson) is where this mental shortcut can go wrong.

Neil Tyson quotes the person’s spontaneous thoughts on the “lights flashing in the sky” almost in a stream of consciousness manner. Their judgment is riddled with quick and intuitive assessments and full of free associations with other familiar concepts such as aliens. It’s a good example of a mental shotgun, a spontaneous extrapolation from lights in the sky to the presence of a spacefaring civilisation within seconds.

The opposite of a mental shotgun could be conceptualised as a mental precision rifle. It fires a single bullet with maximum accuracy after careful deliberation of environmental factors. This process would be more akin to our System 2 of thinking. System 2 is also what I think Neil invokes in his example when he calls for a slow and careful evaluation of the aerial phenomenon.

But our mind just likes to shoot first and then ask questions. The misapplication happens when the quick and easy answer to an obviously complex problem is not caught in time and used to make far-reaching decisions. To be fair, there’s probably an equally fast heuristic at play to acknowledge that an alien space invasion is not imminent.

2. Availability Heuristic

[Australia] has more things that will kill you than anywhere else. Of the world’s ten most poisonous snakes, all are Australian. […] If you are not stung or pronged to death in some unexpected manner, you may be fatally chomped by sharks or crocodiles, or carried helplessly out to sea by irresistible currents, or left to stagger to an unhappy death in the baking outback. It’s a tough place. Bill Bryson, In a Sunburned Country

Would I be wrong to assume you’re familiar with the legendary deadliness of Australia? Bill Bryson’s travel writing probably contributed a fair bit to that image. Imagine you’ve just finished reading Bryson. Now somebody asks you if Australia was a safe country to travel to. Your mind will probably use the availability heuristic to give an ad-hoc answer in the negative. If something comes to mind quickly, it must have more relevance, we seem to reason.

As touched on above, the availability heuristic causes us to judge “the frequency of an event or category based on the ease with which instances come to mind” (Pherson). As a quick mental shortcut, we do well to be suspicious of fauna and be careful wandering around Australia. It’s a good idea to keep in mind that plenty of spiders are venomous and sharks pose a danger at the beaches. But in reality shark attacks, for example, are rarer than our minds would lead us to believe.

The misapplication seems to happen when we fail to acknowledge that the actual question is more complex and difficult to answer. Once System 2 takes over, though, we can use Bayesian thinking to gather more information and update our decisions accordingly.

3. Anchoring Effect

$119,900,000

The clue to the price tag is in the painting itself. $119.9 million is what the below version of Norwegian painter Edvard Munk’s famous The Scream sold for in 2012. $18.25 is the price for a ticket to the Munch Museum Tøyen in Oslo, Norway. You can afford that. Instead of buying, you could go see one of the other original versions of the same painting over six million times. What a bargain!

If you’re now rushing to book flights and museum tickets to Oslo, chances are you’ve misapplied the anchoring heuristic by accepting “the given value of something unknown as a starting point”. Imagine I had quoted the ticket price of $2 for a different art museum first. The Munch Museum would’ve seemed rather expensive in comparison.

Anchoring is a classic negotiation tactic. It works with numbers, but you can also anchor emotions. How would you feel as a receptionist if a guest told you they were about to ruin your day? You may be inclined to think of the worst that could’ve happened. Until it turns out all the guest wants is an upgrade. What a relief! This is an example from master negotiator Chris Voss who teaches all about anchoring in his book Never Split the Difference . It shows how quickly our tendency to take mental shortcuts can be taken advantage of.

We seem to be particularly susceptible to misapplying this mental shortcut when we don’t know much about something. Sure, it gives our minds something to hold on to when we’re lost. However, before making a decision, it’s a good idea to pause and reflect on who provided us with the anchor and with what intention. Speaking of pause and reflection.

4. Groupthink

Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to reform (or pause and reflect). Mark Twain

Mark Twain’s aphorism probably sounds counterintuitive. Group verdicts have major advantages. Majority decisions are the bedrock of liberal democracy. Collaborative sensemaking benefits from the wisdom of many minds and can help us overcome the biases of the individual. However, sometimes we go with the majority opinion not because we think it’s the right one. We choose to agree out of a mere desire for consensus.

Granted, acknowledging and caring about what other people think is generally considered to be a good sign we’re not psychopathic. [ 1 ] But simply going with what the group deems best can become disadvantageous when groupthink sets in. Identified by Pherson as a misapplied heuristic, it was first coined by psychologist Irving L. Janis in a 1971 article:

I use the term groupthink as a quick and easy way to refer to the mode of thinking that persons engage in when concurrence-seeking becomes so dominant in a cohesive ingroup that it tends to override realistic appraisal of alternative courses of action. [ 2 ]

Janis further explains : The better the group gets along, the greater the danger of a lack of independent critical thinking. This can lead to self-censorship and the ingroup making irrational decisions against an outgroup. As I’ve discussed in the Tenth Man Rule , a form of institutionalised devil’s advocacy can break through self-censorship and false consensus. It’s an adversarial approach and probably not for everyone. We don’t want to end up becoming a loud minority dictatorship either. A bit of pause and reflection seems like a good idea either way.

5. Premature Closure

Therefore test, who wants to bind himself forever, Whether heart will find right heart. Euphoria is short, remorse is long. Friedrich Schiller, Song of the Bell

This excerpt from Schiller’s famous poem sums up beautifully the problem with Premature Closure. In Germany, the lines are often intentionally misquoted when it comes to relationships: “Therefore test, who wants to bind himself forever if he cannot find someone better.” Alluding to System 1 and System 2, Pherson warns that Premature Closure can be misapplied if we stop our efforts “when a seemingly satisfactory answer is found before sufficient information is collected and proper analysis can be performed”. So the question is: When do we know enough to put the lid on a decision?

Sacrificing rigour and patience for something that appears satisfactory on the surface could mean we’re missing out on something even better. Again, it would be ludicrous to prepare a cost-benefit analysis for every minuscule life decision. But settling for a heuristic becomes more and more costly the higher the stakes are.

On the one hand, stopping the search for an adequate answer at the very first sign of success doesn’t seem like a good idea. Social psychologist Jonathan Haidt has pointed out the negative effects of motivated reasoning which causes us to stop the search for evidence as soon as our initial intuitive judgement is confirmed.

On the other hand, it’s also not very efficient to keep searching for eternity. This is particularly true since decisions are mere hypotheses of what will happen once we implement them. In a sense we’re trying to predict Black Swans , that is the unpredictable. As soon as we start to think deliberately and logical about it, the lack of a stopping rule for gathering more information and generating hypotheses becomes apparent.

Whether premature closure would be considered a misapplied heuristic seems to depend on the decision at hand. My five principles for decision-making advice might bring some clarity, though, I’m afraid, there’s no ultimately satisfactory solution to this. Except for following Schiller and not trading euphoria for remorse. When in doubt, play the long game and choose long term over the short term.

Closing Thoughts

Our minds are inclined to cut corners. Did you fall for my anchoring? Or did you know that the Gotthard Tunnel would only save you about 30 minutes?

Maybe I spoke too soon, too, when I compared heuristics to real-life shortcuts. As opposed to choosing a tunnel to save some time, we can’t help ourselves but cut corners mentally. We often don’t seem to realise when we use a heuristic and fail to notice that it didn’t even take us where we hoped it would. In other words, mental shortcuts are far less reliable. Especially when it comes to decisions with a long-term impact, it seems like a good idea to prevent misapplied heuristics.

Apart from knowing about the nature of mental shortcuts, their limitations and trade-offs we can use analytical techniques to keep us from jumping to conclusions and making bad decisions. Am I being deceived? Try the structured analytic technique of deception detection . What are the risks of starting s omething new? A SWOT Analysis might work. Is the submarine in the front yard the real deal? A simple five-step satellite image analysis can help. Plus, it can be quite entertaining to observe how our mind jumps to ridiculous conclusions.

Chris Meyer

I'm a writer, teacher & analyst with a background in languages, martial arts & failing at things. I collect and connect ideas while attempting humour. Here are 50 unbelievable facts about me .

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Problem Solving

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Review Questions

A specific formula for solving a problem is called ________.

• an algorithm
• a heuristic
• a mental set
• trial and error

A mental shortcut in the form of a general problem-solving framework is called ________.

Which type of bias involves becoming fixated on a single trait of a problem?

• anchoring bias
• confirmation bias
• representative bias
• availability bias

Which type of bias involves relying on a false stereotype to make a decision?

What is decision making?

Decisions, decisions. When was the last time you struggled with a choice? Maybe it was this morning, when you decided to hit the snooze button—again. Perhaps it was at a restaurant, with a miles-long menu and the server standing over you. Or maybe it was when you left your closet in a shambles after trying on seven different outfits before a big presentation. Often, making a decision—even a seemingly simple one—can be difficult. And people will go to great lengths—and pay serious sums of money—to avoid having to make a choice. The expensive tasting menu at the restaurant, for example. Or limiting your closet choices to black turtlenecks, à la Steve Jobs.

Get to know and directly engage with senior McKinsey experts on decision making

Aaron De Smet is a senior partner in McKinsey’s New Jersey office, Eileen Kelly Rinaudo  is McKinsey’s global director of advancing women executives and is based in the New York office, Frithjof Lund is a senior partner in the Oslo office, and Leigh Weiss is a senior adviser in the Boston office.

If you’ve ever wrestled with a decision at work, you’re definitely not alone. According to McKinsey research, executives spend a significant portion of their time— nearly 40 percent , on average—making decisions. Worse, they believe most of that time is poorly used. People struggle with decisions so much so that we actually get exhausted from having to decide too much, a phenomenon called decision fatigue.

But decision fatigue isn’t the only cost of ineffective decision making. According to a McKinsey survey of more than 1,200 global business leaders, inefficient decision making costs a typical Fortune 500 company 530,000 days  of managers’ time each year, equivalent to about $250 million in annual wages. That’s a lot of turtlenecks.

How can business leaders ease the burden of decision making and put this time and money to better use? Read on to learn the ins and outs of smart decision making—and how to put it to work.

Learn more about our People & Organizational Performance Practice .

How can organizations untangle ineffective decision-making processes?

McKinsey research has shown that agile is the ultimate solution for many organizations looking to streamline their decision making . Agile organizations are more likely to put decision making in the right hands, are faster at reacting to (or anticipating) shifts in the business environment, and often attract top talent who prefer working at companies with greater empowerment and fewer layers of management.

For organizations looking to become more agile, it’s possible to quickly boost decision-making efficiency by categorizing the type of decision to be made and adjusting the approach accordingly. In the next section, we review three types of decision making and how to optimize the process for each.

What are three keys to faster, better decisions?

Business leaders today have access to more sophisticated data than ever before. But it hasn’t necessarily made decision making any easier. For one thing, organizational dynamics—such as unclear roles, overreliance on consensus, and death by committee—can get in the way of straightforward decision making. And more data often means more decisions to be taken, which can become too much for one person, team, or department. This can make it more difficult for leaders to cleanly delegate, which in turn can lead to a decline in productivity.

Leaders are growing increasingly frustrated with broken decision-making processes, slow deliberations, and uneven decision-making outcomes. Fewer than half  of the 1,200 respondents of a McKinsey survey report that decisions are timely, and 61 percent say that at least half the time they spend making decisions is ineffective.

What’s the solution? According to McKinsey research, effective solutions center around categorizing decision types and organizing different processes to support each type. Further, each decision category should be assigned its own practice—stimulating debate, for example, or empowering employees—to yield improvements in effectiveness.

Here are the three decision categories  that matter most to senior leaders, and the standout practice that makes the biggest difference for each type of decision.

• Big-bet decisions are infrequent but high risk, such as acquisitions. These decisions carry the potential to shape the future of the company, and as a result are generally made by top leaders and the board. Spurring productive debate by assigning someone to argue the case for and against a potential decision can improve big-bet decision making.
• Cross-cutting decisions, such as pricing, can be frequent and high risk. These are usually made by business unit heads, in cross-functional forums as part of a collaborative process. These types of decisions can be improved by doubling down on process refinement. The ideal process should be one that helps clarify objectives, measures, and targets.
• Delegated decisions are frequent but low risk and are handled by an individual or working team with some input from others. Delegated decision making can be improved by ensuring that the responsibility for the decision is firmly in the hands of those closest to the work. This approach also enhances engagement and accountability.

In addition, business leaders can take the following four actions to help sustain rapid decision making :

• Focus on the game-changing decisions, ones that will help an organization create value and serve its purpose.
• Convene only necessary meetings, and eliminate lengthy reports. Turn unnecessary meetings into emails, and watch productivity bloom. For necessary meetings, provide short, well-prepared prereads to aid in decision making.
• Clarify the roles of decision makers and other voices. Who has a vote, and who has a voice?
• Push decision-making authority to the front line—and tolerate mistakes.

Introducing McKinsey Explainers : Direct answers to complex questions

How can business leaders effectively delegate decision making.

Business is more complex and dynamic than ever, meaning business leaders are faced with needing to make more decisions in less time. Decision making takes up an inordinate amount of management’s time—up to 70 percent for some executives—which leads to inefficiencies and opportunity costs.

As discussed above, organizations should treat different types of decisions differently . Decisions should be classified  according to their frequency, risk, and importance. Delegated decisions are the most mysterious for many organizations: they are the most frequent, and yet the least understood. Only about a quarter of survey respondents  report that their organizations make high-quality and speedy delegated decisions. And yet delegated decisions, because they happen so often, can have a big impact on organizational culture.

The key to better delegated decisions is to empower employees by giving them the authority and confidence to act. That means not simply telling employees which decisions they can or can’t make; it means giving employees the tools they need to make high-quality decisions and the right level of guidance as they do so.

Here’s how to support delegation and employee empowerment:

• Ensure that your organization has a well-defined, universally understood strategy. When the strategic intent of an organization is clear, empowerment is much easier because it allows teams to pull in the same direction.
• Clearly define roles and responsibilities. At the foundation of all empowerment efforts is a clear understanding of who is responsible for what, including who has input and who doesn’t.
• Invest in capability building (and coaching) up front. To help managers spend meaningful coaching time, organizations should also invest in managers’ leadership skills.
• Build an empowerment-oriented culture. Leaders should role model mindsets that promote empowerment, and managers should build the coaching skills they want to see. Managers and employees, in particular, will need to get comfortable with failure as a necessary step to success.
• Decide when to get involved. Managers should spend effort up front to decide what is worth their focused attention. They should know when it’s appropriate to provide close guidance and when not to.

How can you guard against bias in decision making?

Cognitive bias is real. We all fall prey, no matter how we try to guard ourselves against it. And cognitive and organizational bias undermines good decision making, whether you’re choosing what to have for lunch or whether to put in a bid to acquire another company.

Here are some of the most common cognitive biases and strategies for how to avoid them:

• Confirmation bias. Often, when we already believe something, our minds seek out information to support that belief—whether or not it is actually true. Confirmation bias  involves overweighting evidence that supports our belief, underweighting evidence against our belief, or even failing to search impartially for evidence in the first place. Confirmation bias is one of the most common traps organizational decision makers fall into. One famous—and painful—example of confirmation bias is when Blockbuster passed up the opportunity  to buy a fledgling Netflix for $50 million in 2000. (Actually, that’s putting it politely. Netflix executives remember being “laughed out” of Blockbuster’s offices.) Fresh off the dot-com bubble burst of 2000, Blockbuster executives likely concluded that Netflix had approached them out of desperation—not that Netflix actually had a baby unicorn on its hands.
• Herd mentality. First observed by Charles Mackay in his 1841 study of crowd psychology, herd mentality happens when information that’s available to the group is determined to be more useful than privately held knowledge. Individuals buy into this bias because there’s safety in the herd. But ignoring competing viewpoints might ultimately be costly. To counter this, try a teardown exercise , wherein two teams use scenarios, advanced analytics, and role-playing to identify how a herd might react to a decision, and to ensure they can refute public perceptions.
• Sunk-cost fallacy. Executives frequently hold onto underperforming business units or projects because of emotional or legacy attachment . Equally, business leaders hate shutting projects down . This, researchers say, is due to the ingrained belief that if everyone works hard enough, anything can be turned into gold. McKinsey research indicates two techniques for understanding when to hold on and when to let go. First, change the burden of proof from why an asset should be cut to why it should be retained. Next, categorize business investments according to whether they should be grown, maintained, or disposed of—and follow clearly differentiated investment rules  for each group.
• Ignoring unpleasant information. Researchers call this the “ostrich effect”—when people figuratively bury their heads in the sand , ignoring information that will make their lives more difficult. One study, for example, found that investors were more likely to check the value of their portfolios when the markets overall were rising, and less likely to do so when the markets were flat or falling. One way to help get around this is to engage in a readout process, where individuals or teams summarize discussions as they happen. This increases the likelihood that everyone leaves a meeting with the same understanding of what was said.
• Halo effect. Important personal and professional choices are frequently affected by people’s tendency to make specific judgments based on general impressions . Humans are tempted to use simple mental frames to understand complicated ideas, which means we frequently draw conclusions faster than we should. The halo effect is particularly common in hiring decisions. To avoid this bias, structured interviews can help mitigate the essentializing tendency. When candidates are measured against indicators, intuition is less likely to play a role.

For more common biases and how to beat them, check out McKinsey’s Bias Busters Collection .

Learn more about Strategy & Corporate Finance consulting  at McKinsey—and check out job opportunities related to decision making if you’re interested in working at McKinsey.

Articles referenced include:

• “ Bias busters: When the crowd isn’t necessarily wise ,” McKinsey Quarterly , May 23, 2022, Eileen Kelly Rinaudo , Tim Koller , and Derek Schatz
• “ Boards and decision making ,” April 8, 2021, Aaron De Smet , Frithjof Lund , Suzanne Nimocks, and Leigh Weiss
• “ To unlock better decision making, plan better meetings ,” November 9, 2020, Aaron De Smet , Simon London, and Leigh Weiss
• “ Reimagine decision making to improve speed and quality ,” September 14, 2020, Julie Hughes , J. R. Maxwell , and Leigh Weiss
• “ For smarter decisions, empower your employees ,” September 9, 2020, Aaron De Smet , Caitlin Hewes, and Leigh Weiss
• “ Bias busters: Lifting your head from the sand ,” McKinsey Quarterly , August 18, 2020, Eileen Kelly Rinaudo
• “ Decision making in uncertain times ,” March 24, 2020, Andrea Alexander, Aaron De Smet , and Leigh Weiss
• “ Bias busters: Avoiding snap judgments ,” McKinsey Quarterly , November 6, 2019, Tim Koller , Dan Lovallo, and Phil Rosenzweig
• “ Three keys to faster, better decisions ,” McKinsey Quarterly , May 1, 2019, Aaron De Smet , Gregor Jost , and Leigh Weiss
• “ Decision making in the age of urgency ,” April 30, 2019, Iskandar Aminov, Aaron De Smet , Gregor Jost , and David Mendelsohn
• “ Bias busters: Pruning projects proactively ,” McKinsey Quarterly , February 6, 2019, Tim Koller , Dan Lovallo, and Zane Williams
• “ Decision making in your organization: Cutting through the clutter ,” McKinsey Quarterly , January 16, 2018, Aaron De Smet , Simon London, and Leigh Weiss
• “ Untangling your organization’s decision making ,” McKinsey Quarterly , June 21, 2017, Aaron De Smet , Gerald Lackey, and Leigh Weiss
• “ Are you ready to decide? ,” McKinsey Quarterly , April 1, 2015, Philip Meissner, Olivier Sibony, and Torsten Wulf.

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