Heuristic Thinking Is The Refined Mental Process People Use When Faced With An Alternative

The decision making process includes cognitive processes that eventually lead to a choice in action while taking into consideration the alternative possibilities (Allen, Dorozenko, & Roberts, 2016). Not all choices have to lead to an action. The values and preferences of the person making the choice also comes into play when making the final decision. Problem-solving to obtain a certain goal or satisfactory by a solution is the main reason people go through the decision making process (Stefaniak, & Tracey, 2014). This process has many factors that end with one final result or solution. The decisions made can be rational or irrational and can be determined by explicit or tacit knowledge (Qingyao, Dongyu, & Weihua, 2016). Since the decision making process can be very difficult at time, psychologists have viewed the process in different perspectives to get a better understanding (Rossi, Picchi, Di Stefano, Marongiu, & Scarsini, 2015). The different perspectives include; psychological, cognitive, and normative or communicative rationality.

In Chapter 3, there were 12 areas of bias spread across the 3 areas of heuristics. The main theme of the text was to prove that we are predisposed to certain outcomes. As we make important decisions we rely on our memory, or a number of past events, or even ignoring facts. Overall, we are biased in many ways when it comes to making decisions, or predicting outcomes of a particular event.

Educated Guess- One of the most common heuristics we use is an educated guess. This occurs when we do not have the necessary information to know something as a fact, but we have enough information to make an informed decision. We use the information we have and prior experience to make a quick rational decision despite not knowing the right answer. This can often times prove to be very effective because we encounter many situations where we need to make an informed decision even though we may not know the right answer. These educated guesses can also hurt our judgement though because they can begin to breed overconfidence. We may start to place too much trust in these guesses because they have proven effective in the past, and become too confident in hasty decisions.

There are 3 different types of Heuristics. I decided to write about the Availability Heuristic. In the book, You Are Not So Smart by, David McRaney he explains how the availability heuristic is making a choice based on an immediate and easy example that comes to mind when evaluating a decision. Usually, this happens when you hear something from a friend or family member and immediately assume it is true without gathering any information, and just stop or continue whatever the problem was. When I was younger, I would always want dark hair. My mom at that time would not let me dye my hair. I remembered my aunt telling me that coffee was a good way to get darker hair. I quickly gathered all the materials and hid

Confirmation Bias: only explore information that supports our ideas Hindsight Bias: reporting untruthfully that we projected an outcome Availability Heuristic: calculating possibilities grounded on ease of recall Base-Rate Fallacy: disregarding information about universal principles Representativeness Heuristic: making decisions grounded on stereotypes

Cognitive Biases people are tendencies to think in certain ways that can lead to systematic deviations from a "standard of rationality or good judgment, and often studied in psychology. And behavior can playing a big part

Another type of hindrance to the critical thinking process would be Assumption. This method would be assuming information about a situation or even prejudging without actually thinking about all possibilities before making your decision. The best way to avoid this hindrance would be to not prejudge anything and use your knowledge and critical thinking to base your final decision.

To acquire more information regarding these questions that are floating around in my head, I usually research more about the specific culture to make me more knowledgeable about the topic. Then, when I have a solid basis, I bring my questions to my psychology teacher. We have had a few conversations discussing the biological and cognitive processes that contribute to someone's decision-making ability and why these activities are more similar to our own thought processes than you would

In decision making there are three heuristics that we utilize, the representativeness heuristic, the availability heuristic and the anchoring and adjustment heuristic (Matlin, 2012). These heuristics act sort of like a mental short cut that helps us quickly make a decision or judgement. Most of the time these heuristics lead us to a sound logical decision, “but we sometimes apply them inappropriately” (Matlin, 2012, p. 408), and this can land us in unpredictable, faulty, and many times undesirable situations.

Reasoning is a cognitive process that includes acting on information and data to reach conclusions. It requires the extraction of a certain conclusion from examinations, assumptions or facts. In formal reasoning problems the information necessary for drawing an inference is distinctly stated, and there is a single correct answer that can be found by applying an algorithm. In informal reasoning problems, there is no single correct solution. Instead there are either predictions, or heuristics- “cognitive rules of thumb, hard-wired mental shortcuts that everyone uses every day in routine decision making and judgment” . One of these heuristics is called anchoring and adjustment, and claims that humans tend to make a decision based on the first piece of information they are exposed to, suggesting that this is why the final decision is typically bias towards the anchor (this first piece of information).

The authors define bias in the text in three main ways. The first is distortion bias which is applied to news that purportedly distorts or falsifies news. The second is content bias this happens when news outlets favor one side rather than providing fair and equal treatment to both. The third and final bias definition in the text is decision making bias, this bias look’s at the mindset’s of journalists who allegedly produce the biased content.

Marewski, J.N., & Gigerenzer, G. (2012). Heuristic decision making in medicine. Dialogues In Clinical Neuroscience, 14(1), 77-89.

I believe critical thinking is a process in the mind in which someone tries to focus and concentrate to make analytical judgment in order to achieve acceptable goal.In fact, the critical thinking is a scientific crucial form of thinking to make the right and accurate decision. Obtaining proper information will make better and beneficial decisions.

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Judgmental heuristics is something, as a recruiter, I use everyday. I would define judgmental heuristics as customized operational decisions applied through occupational experiences. Throughout the reading, many consider these decisions to be “rules of thumb”, I would most likely describe these decisions, as applied to my career, as being proactive. As described by, Kendra Cherry a psychology expert, “These rule-of-thumb strategies shorten decision-making time and allow people to function without constantly stopping to think about their next course of action” (Cherry, 2015).