11 checked facts

Heuristics

Everything on this site about heuristics — each one naming the study behind it.

You struggle to change a rule once established.
Mental set, or the Einstellung effect, happens when you become fixated on a single approach and fail to see simpler, a…
Your brain prefers simple patterns over complex reality.
The 'Representativeness Heuristic' leads you to judge the probability of an event by how much it resembles your mental…
You make judgements based on how quickly you think.
The feeling of ease, or processing fluency, acts as a heuristic for validity.…
You mistake the ease of recalling a reason for the validity of that reason.
The availability heuristic leads you to treat information that is easier to remember as more important or frequent.…
An anecdote outweighs data when you make a judgment.
You consistently prioritize specific, vivid information over broader, more accurate statistical trends.…
You judge risk by how easily you recall stories.
The availability heuristic causes you to overestimate the probability of events that are emotionally vivid or recently…
You believe common causes of death are much rarer.
People consistently overestimate the frequency of dramatic deaths like shark attacks while underestimating common, qui…
You accept vague personality descriptions as deeply personal.
Participants in a 1948 study rated a generic, personality-neutral paragraph as highly accurate when told it was writte…
You value items more simply because they are scarce.
A 1975 study demonstrated that cookies presented in a scarce supply (two cookies) were rated significantly higher in q…
You make decisions based on the most easily recalled examples.
The availability heuristic leads you to judge the probability of events based on how easily specific instances come to…
You judge how likely something is by your memory.
The ease with which examples come to mind determines your probability assessment.…