Lesson 2 Heuristics

mental shortcuts we use to make quicker, more efficient decisions

The availability heuristic is a mental shortcut in which we use the information that we first think of to make a judgement


The availability heuristic:

○uses information which is readily available or easy to imagine

○is often influenced by information that is recent, frequent, vivid or emotionally significant

○assumes that information that can be recalled easily must be significant or lead us towards a satisfactory response.

The representative heuristic is a mental shortcut in decision-making where we estimate the likelihood of something occurring or being true based on its similarity to our existing understanding and expectations



The representative heuristic:

allows us to quickly categorise information

can lead to a biased or inaccurate estimation of probability, often for scenarios that we couldn’t know the answer to

• The affect heuristic: when decision making is influenced by an individual’s current emotional state or mood. 
• The affect heuristic

○is useful as it allows for decisions to occur quickly and efficiently

○can lead us to make decisions without taking the time to weigh up all relevant information

○leads us to make judgements about certain words, images and objects because of the emotional response they prompt.