What the exam asks
- Concept application (Section I): You will read short vignettes—about shoppers, doctors, voters, or students—and identify which specific heuristic or decision-making error explains their choice.
- Research scenarios (Section I & Section II AAQ): You may analyze experiments where researchers manipulate how choices are presented (such as positive vs. negative wording) to measure shifts in participant decisions.
- Argumentation (Section II EBQ): When sources discuss flawed human judgment, consumer behavior, or risk assessment, you can apply concepts like the availability heuristic, framing, or the sunk-cost fallacy in parts B(ii) and C(ii) to explain why the evidence supports your claim.
Core ideas
Heuristics: fast mental shortcuts
Unlike an algorithm (a step-by-step rule that guarantees a correct answer), a heuristic is a fast, intuitive mental shortcut. Heuristics are efficient, but they often lead to flawed judgments.
| Heuristic | How the shortcut works | Why it causes errors in judgment | Classic exam scenario |
|---|---|---|---|
| Representativeness heuristic | Judging the likelihood of something by comparing it to a mental prototype or prior stereotype. | Causes people to ignore base rates (actual statistical probabilities in a population) in favor of how well something fits a stereotype. | Assuming a quiet, poetry-loving man is an Ivy League classics professor rather than a truck driver, even though there are hundreds of times more truck drivers. |
| Availability heuristic | Estimating the likelihood of an event based on how easily or vividly examples come to mind. | Vivid, recent, or heavily televised events feel common, distorting our sense of actual statistical risk. | Refusing to swim in the ocean after watching a dramatic news report about a shark attack, despite shark attacks being extraordinarily rare. |
Prior experience and context: mental set, priming, and framing
How we approach a decision is heavily shaped by what worked in the past, what we were just exposed to, and how the options are worded.