Human Growth and Development / Unit 11 HGD 1544 worked example, 60 to 90 seconds
Heuristics
The idea
Heuristics are mental shortcuts that save effort but can mislead. The familiarity heuristic favours what is already known. The affect heuristic decides by feeling, sometimes wisely and sometimes not. The scarcity heuristic treats rarer things as more valuable, a tactic advertisers use. The availability heuristic judges events likelier when examples come easily to mind, which works for common events and misleads for rare but memorable ones.
In practice
A student who judges plane crashes common after a week of news coverage: availability at work.
Where people slip
Exam items describe a judgement and ask for the heuristic: "limited time only" points to scarcity, a gut feeling to affect, a vivid recent example to availability, and preferring the known brand to familiarity. Heuristics are efficient, not foolish; they fail in predictable situations.
Your place on the trail
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