Why does a good decision still feel wrong when a rare disaster is easy to picture?
The availability heuristic is using ease of retrieval as a cue to probability (Tversky & Kahneman, as treated in Myers & DeWall, 2021; Spielman et al., 2020). Cognition includes that judgment. An algorithm would grind through a procedure that guarantees the answer if one exists. The heuristic is faster and sometimes wrong. A name that comes back to mind easily can be judged as more common than it is.
If a language has no single word for a distinction, does that mean speakers cannot think the distinction?
Not by itself. Language is a productive symbol system. Linguistic relativity is the hypothesis that language shapes habitual thought. Evidence is mixed and specific; intro texts should keep it as a hypothesis. Figure 13.1 contrasts algorithm and heuristic so a later paper that says “participants decided” can be asked which kind of procedure they used.
| Procedure | What it does | Cost |
|---|---|---|
| algorithm | Follows steps that guarantee a solution if one exists | Slow; needs a well-defined problem |
| heuristic | Uses a shortcut (including ease of retrieval) | Fast; can be biased |
Check yourself with a quick quiz
A few questions on this lesson only. Questions you miss come back later. Progress stays in this browser and is shared with the full quiz.
References
- Myers, D. G., & DeWall, C. N. (2021). Psychology (13th ed.). Worth.
- Spielman, R. M., Jenkins, W. J., & Lovett, M. D. (2020). Psychology 2e. OpenStax.
Image and media credits
- Top image. A chessboard and chess clock on a table. It sets the scene for this lesson on thinking and language. Source: Created for this site with Grok Imagine (xAI), an AI image generator. License: Original image made for mattgaugerx.com.
