1. What Are Heuristics?

What Are Heuristics?

What just happened?

It seems simple, but, in fact, a whole series of perceptions and decisions just happened within fractions of a second!

1. You perceived the visitor as a salesperson.
2. You decided that you are not going to buy whatever they are selling.
3. In fact, you decided you don’t even want to know what they have to offer!
4. Further, you decided how you want to communicate this decision to them.
5. Then, you did that.

How can such complex thought processes take place so quickly and effortlessly?

Because of heuristics — which are “mental shortcuts.”

Heuristics are cognitive processes that occur automatically (without a conscious decision to do so) and allow us to go from taking in social situations — such as a visitor at your door — to engaging in relevant behaviours — “Hi! No, thank you.” — instantaneously.

Not only are they fast and effortless, but they are also efficient. They conserve limited cognitive resources, such as attention and working memory. We could respond to our visitor while still planning our dinner, for example (if that’s what we were doing when the doorbell rang).

Mastering heuristics and how they work requires a fundamental understanding of cognition.

Cognition refers to how we acquire, store, and process information. In cognitive theory and research, we often talk about mental structures and the processes that operate on them.

For heuristics, the most relevant cognitive concepts are:

• Memory
• Mental representations
• Modes of processing / dual processing

These topics are covered in the next sections.