Unit Essay

Instructions
Mental shortcuts can be both beneficial and costly. We read about heuristics in Chapter 3. In this paper, you are to find one benefit and one disadvantage associated with both the availability heuristic and the representative heuristic.

You can rely on specific examples from your life, the lives of people you know, the media, books, or movies. After you describe the example, discuss a better way of thinking about that particular situation. Draw on the research from the textbook or another resource on heuristics.

Your response should be at least two pages in length. All sources used, including the textbook, must be referenced; paraphrased and quoted material must have accompanying citations.

TEXTBOOK: Aronson, E., Wilson, T. D., & Akert, R. M. (2013). Social psychology (8th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson

Solution Preview

Introduction

Heuristics are mental shortcuts that explain how people make decisions, solve problems and judge a situation. Using the rule of thumb or making a decision intuitively are all mental shortcuts that help ease the cognitive difficulty of decision making when one is unable to do an exhaustive search when faced with a complex problem or has incomplete facts.

(610 words)