2.1.3 Heuristics

Social Cognition

The role of person perception, attributions, attitudes and stereotypes in interpreting, analysing, remembering and using social information.

Cognitive Dissonance

The psychological discomfort experienced when holding two or more conflicting beliefs, values, or attitudes.

Heuristics

Mental shortcuts that ease the cognitive load of making decisions; they can lead to errors.

Availability Heuristic

Judging the likelihood of events based on how easily examples come to mind.

Representative Heuristic

Categorizing people or events based on how closely they match a pre-existing prototype.

Affect Heuristic

Making judgments based on current emotional states.

Anchoring Heuristic

Forming judgments influenced by the first information encountered about a concept.

Base-rate Fallacy

A cognitive bias where the likelihood of an event is misjudged based on vivid memories rather than statistical facts.