Heuristics: Know Your Brain 

By Jasleen Kaur

Counselling Psychologist

Our brain stores all the information about us, our families, our friends, and our surroundings. But how much do we know about our brains? Did you know our brains have specialized and unique processes to help us remember different kinds of details? Let’s start with a fun quiz. I’ll describe a person, and you have to guess their profession from the options: Engineer, Chef, or Sailor. 

A. A middle-aged man in overalls with a wrench 
B. A person in a white coat with a chef’s hat 
C. An individual in a uniform with a captain’s hat 

If your answers were Engineer, Chef, and Sailor, welcome to the Heuristic Club! While these seem like logical answers, they’re actually the result of our brain’s handy mental shortcuts known as heuristics. Think about it—without knowing these people’s education, career, skills, or interests, you made a quick, educated guess based on how similar they looked to Engineers, Chefs, and Sailors you’ve seen before. This is your brain using mental shortcuts. 

What Are Mental Shortcuts? 

Mental shortcuts, (also called heuristics), are simple guidelines our brains use to solve problems quickly and avoid information overload. Just like a computer with shortcut icons on its desktop, our brain has a variety of heuristics to streamline decision-making. On average, humans make over 3000 decisions daily! These shortcuts help us sort through a jumble of information efficiently. 

How Does It Work? 

Our brain uses two types of thinking for making decisions: SLOW thinking and FAST thinking. 

Slow Thinking is effortful, logical, and conscious. It scans through all the information stored in our memory, like when solving complex tasks or navigating challenging situations whereas Fast Thinking is quick, automatic, and requires less effort. It saves time by applying heuristics to routine tasks, like performing maintenance checks or navigating familiar routes. Fast thinking relies on broad general categories stored in our minds. 

Mental Shortcuts in Everyday Life 
 
In addition to understanding how heuristics work, it’s also crucial to recognize their impact on our daily lives. 

Assessing Danger 

Have you ever felt uneasy during a storm at sea but perfectly calm driving in traffic? This reaction is due to the availability heuristic. News of maritime accidents is more sensational and readily available, so our brain develops a shortcut associating storms with danger. Statistically, road accidents are far more common, but our brain uses readily available information to assess risk. 

Job Selection 

Imagine you’ve been searching for a new job for months. Finally, you get an offer and accept it quickly, even if it’s not perfect. Why? When emotions like relief or desperation run high, they can override logical reasoning, leading to snap decisions. 

Shopping 

Why do we often buy from the same brand or store? It’s familiar and requires less effort than exploring new options. Even if there are better choices, our brain prefers the path of least resistance, making quick decisions based on known information. 

Assessing People 

We often judge new crew members based on their appearance, cultural background, or what we’ve heard about them, rather than forming our own opinions. It’s faster and easier for our brain to use existing biases and stereotypes than to build a new perception from scratch. This can lead to unfair assessments and missed opportunities for valuable contributions from diverse team members. 

Media Influence 

The media we consume shapes our opinions because it provides readily available information. Whether it’s news, movies, or social media, repeated exposure influences our views on celebrities, countries, or policies. Fact-checking and deep research might lead to different opinions, but it’s time-consuming. 

Making More Meaningful Decisions 

While heuristics are handy, they’re not foolproof. To make more meaningful decisions, especially in diverse and dynamic environments, it’s crucial to recognize when to slow down and apply more deliberate thinking. For instance, seeking diverse perspectives is vital because different backgrounds and experiences provide unique insights and alternative viewpoints, leading to better decision-making. Encourage input from colleagues with various cultural, educational, and professional backgrounds by creating an inclusive atmosphere where everyone feels comfortable sharing their perspectives. Fact-checking information is another critical step, as media and hearsay can quickly shape our opinions based on incomplete or biased information.  By developing a habit of double-checking information from reliable sources and encouraging a culture of skepticism we can form more accurate judgments. 

Furthermore, reflecting on past decisions allows us to understand when heuristics were beneficial and when they led to errors. To ensure this one can conduct debriefing sessions after major decisions to evaluate what went well and what didn’t and foster a mindset of continuous improvement. Most importantly, understanding and mitigating bias, such as those based on appearance or cultural background, helps us look at everyone with an open eye and not merely a “shortcut” By embracing critical thinking one adopts the habit of making well-informed decisions rather than relying solely on heuristics.  
 
By being mindful of our mental shortcuts and knowing when to switch to slow thinking, we can make better, more informed decisions. This not only enhances our performance but also improves our interactions and relationships with others. Ultimately, recognizing and mitigating the influence of mental shortcuts empowers us to make decisions that are not only smarter but also more empathetic.