Heuristics and What are They

Author : Mary Anne Winslow
Heuristics and its nature, as well as the role that they play in the
understanding and clarification of human behavior can not be
ignored in the study of cognitive psychology. Heuristics, put in
simple terms, can be recognized and defined as shortcuts employed by
humans to draw up potential solutions to a task or problem at the
beginning of the problem and are widely recognized as highly
effective, remarkably good methods for making spontaneous and rapid
decisions or judgments even under heavy time constraints. As for how
they can be considered as either helpful or as a hindrance in the
decision making process and in problem solving, there are obvious
implications from the very nature of the concept of heuristics, such
as the time saving and convenience of such shortcuts and the possible
drawback of making rash decisions and eliminating potentially viable
means to come to a solution because of a lack of information or
inexperience in that area. Based on the definition of what heuristics
are, there are a variety of different conclusions that you could come
to in regards to what they tell us about how our mind works. In this
essay we shall attempt to identify what conclusions can be made about
how our mind works when considering the effects that heuristics have.Before we can explore the implications of heuristics we first have to
define what the term actually means. The concept of heuristics means
the formulating of a hypothetical solution to an impending problem
prior to beginning investigating the actual problem itself. This
hypothetical solution will then serve to guide the course of the
investigation of the problem, allowing it to be modified or
altered as new information is uncovered. Heuristics serve to
streamline the number of possible solutions and increase the
plausibility of those possible solutions.A more simple definition of what a heuristic is would be that they
are shortcuts that allow for fast and reliable decision making drawing
from all information that is already available. This helps us vastly
reduce the number of potential solutions in an instant, by processing
out irrelevant information and leaving only information that is
relevant to the task being dealt with.There are also different types of heuristic to consider. First there
is the recurrence heuristic. This helps us to make judgments based on
our own experiences in the past in similar scenarios, making us assume
a similar outcome will be evident. The second type of heuristic is the
representative heuristic. This is an heuristic that is based on an
identified standard, such as assuming if you have enjoyed a particular
event in the past, then you will still enjoy it in the future, or that
you are more likely to trust the judgment and taste of someone whose
tastes and opinions you recognize as being similar to your own.Heuristics basically pre-empt a suitable solution to an impending
problem based on prior knowledge. Being, in a manner of speaking a
form of shortcut, heuristics will both obviously have positives and
negatives attached to them because of how they are? We will now
explore both how they help decision making and problem solving and how
they can also serve to hinder the decision making and problem solving
processes.The ways in which heuristics can be considered to be helpful for
people are numerous. Heuristics work on a system of bounded
rationality, an d therefore save time and provide results that provide
comparable results to more complex algorithms, in a man made
environment where bounded rationality is often the only real option in
the face of limited time knowledge constraints. In this way it is
obvious to see how heuristics can be seen as helpful and useful to
people as they save time where little may be available, and enable
smart, reasoned decisions and choices to be made in a short amount of
time and with a minimum amount of information available. An example of
a hypothetical situation where recurrence heuristics could prove to be
helpful, could be if an individual was under attack or facing a
situation wherein danger was imminent they would, in an instant, draw
on their past experiences to make their decision as to whether or not
to flee from the situation or stick it out and fight, making an
instant, yet reasoned decision up against a highly constrained period
of time. So, heuristics can be helpful to us because they allow us to
make rational decisions in the face of limited knowledge and pressing
time.In spite of the obvious ways in which heuristics, both recurrence and
representative, can be regarded as a help to our thought process, as
outlined in the previous section of this essay, there are also ways in
which heuristics could be thought of as a hindrance to us in the study
of cognitive psychology. Because the nature of basic heuristics is
likened very much to the idea of a shortcut this presents certain,
apparent implications. The concept of a shortcut is to save time by
finding and operationalising a quicker route, and because a faster
route is taken decisions or solutions to problems could be seen as
rushed or made under haste and vital information may be missed or
ignored.Working on the basis of a recurrence heuristic, one might choose a
solution to a problem or scenario that they face just because they are
familiar with that solution, dismissing other, potentially more
viable, and solutions due to a lack of knowledge. This raises the idea of
an heuristic being not unlike a form of bias, dismissing certain
options or choices in favor of others due to familiarity or
preference.Representative heuristics also cloud judgment and lead to unreasoned
decisions being made based on preconceptions of certain levels and
standards. Such as you could be lead to trust the opinion of someone,
even if you may have doubts about it, purely because you regard their
opinion as usually being similar to your own, therefore clouding your
judgment. Even though heuristics do provide us with much help and
assistance in decision making and problem solving, they also can lead
us to miss information or make poorly guided decisions based on
experience and usual similarity of opinion with another.The nature of what heuristics are and the ways in which they serve to
guide and direct our judgment can be interpreted as telling us a
variety of different things about how our mind works. One way that the
study of heuristics provides us with information about how our mind
works is that it shows that our mind creates 'shortcuts' to speed up
and ease the processing and accessing of information and knowledge
that we are presented with and store. It also shows that our mind
helps to simplify the processing of data, yet still provides effective
results.Even though the use and application of heuristics may limit the
information that is searched and processed, it is thought that even
basic heuristics still manage to compare favorably to the more
detailed and complex algorithms, especially when generalizing to new
information and data. Because of the way that heuristics are
structured by the mind they allow for decisions to be made
intelligently, using a minimum of information showing just how
effectively the mind can work. By studying heuristics, and how they
work, it shows us that the human mind can process and access
information efficiently and quickly by creating shortcuts, yet still
provide effective results.Heuristics, and the cognitive study into them, tell us much about the
human mind and the decision making and problem solving processes. In
very basic terms heuristics are shortcuts to information when making
decisions or encountering problems. Also there is more than one type
of heuristic that we encounter. There are recurrence heuristics,
heuristics based on past experiences and assumption of similar
outcomes in scenarios that resemble one another. There are also
representative heuristics that are based on a personally identified
standard whereby you assume that you will enjoy things that you have
enjoyed in the past or will trust the judgment and opinion of someone
whose opinion you see as similar to your own. They can help us by
allowing us to make smart, reasoned decisions against time or
knowledge constraints, yet they can also prove to be a hindrance to us
by making miss some potentially important information, by making us
make poorly guided decisions based on past experience, and because
they could be regarded as a form of bias in certain situations. They
also serve to show us that our mind creates shortcuts that compare
quite favorably to more complex systems and that our mind simplifies
the processing of information, yet still works efficiently and
provides good results.Mary Anne Winslow is a member of Essay Writing Service counselling department team and a dissertation writing consultant. Contact her to get free counselling on custom essay writing.
Keyword : heuristics, nature, role