Heuristics and Biases in Applied Settings

Twenty years ago, Tversky and Kahneman published an article in Science in which they outlined three heuristics (or cognitive short-cuts) that people use to judge probabilities and to make decisions under uncertain circumstances (Tversky & Kahneman, 1974). They discussed the importance of these heuristics by reference to judgments about the guilt of a defendant, the outcome of an election, and the future value of the dollar. Their formulation spawned a “first wave” of studies on heuristic use (Kahneman, Slovic, & Tversky, 1982). Most of this research, however, employed laboratory simulations, using college undergraduates to make judgments about fictional people and events.

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