What Are Heuristics: How Mental Shortcuts Shape Your Behavior

Heuristics are mental shortcuts that enable people to make quick decisions without extensive analysis. These shortcuts are closely tied to social and cognitive psychology, explaining how humans simplify decision-making and problem-solving. When misused, though, they can backfire, leading to poor and biased judgment.

In this article, we’ll discuss what heuristics are, how they work, and how they relate to the Enneagram framework to help you deepen your self-awareness and improve your decision-making.

What Are Heuristics, and How Do They Shape Our Decisions?

Heuristics are mental shortcuts that shape our decisions by simplifying them. Instead of analyzing every possible option, the mind can apply heuristics, or simple “rule of thumb” strategies, to process information quickly, leading to more efficient decision-making and problem-solving.

Quick Decisions vs. Careful Analysis

Heuristics can be helpful when you need to make a quick decision and have no (or have limited) time for careful analysis. While thorough analysis involves evaluating possible options, considering alternatives, and predicting potential outcomes, heuristics allow you to rely on generalizations and intuitive judgments to act quickly.

These mental shortcuts rely on past experiences, environmental cues, and pattern recognition. As such, they may help you make accurate, efficient decisions, even if better options are available. Essentially, heuristics work best when you need to make a speedy decision that is good enough but not necessarily ideal.

However, heuristics aren’t foolproof, especially in complex decision-making. Because they simplify information, they can cause you to overlook important factors, leading to poor judgment.

Ultimately, when and how to apply heuristics for maximum impact depends on the context. While using mental shortcuts to make everyday choices can prevent cognitive overload, they're generally unsuitable for complex, life-changing, or high-stakes decisions with long-term outcomes.

Types of Heuristics

While there are many types of heuristics, below are the main ones people use:

• Affect heuristic. This cognitive shortcut occurs when you let your mood and emotions, rather than objective information, dictate your decisions.
• Anchoring heuristic. This heuristic happens when an anchor, or the first bit of information you encounter, influences your perception of subsequent information. In other words, it leads you to make judgments and decisions primarily based on the initial piece of information.
• Familiarity heuristic. As the name suggests, the familiarity heuristic occurs when you favor familiar objects, experiences, situations, and people over new ones.
• Availability heuristic. In this mental shortcut, your brain relies on examples, knowledge, or information that immediately comes to mind to form judgments and make decisions.
• Representativeness heuristic. This heuristic involves estimating the likelihood of something by comparing it to a similar situation. Simply put, it causes you to judge people, objects, and situations based on stereotypes or past experiences.

Since you now know what heuristics are and how they affect your decision-making process, it’s time to learn more about the psychology behind them.

The Psychology Behind Heuristics

In cognitive psychology, heuristics are closely connected to the dual-process theory, which recognizes two distinct reasoning and decision-making systems:

• System 1, a fast, automatic system that is driven by intuition and relies on mental shortcuts to make quick judgments
• System 2, a slow system that involves deliberate analysis, requires conscious effort, and uses more mental energy

Although many people associate heuristics with System 1, research suggests that heuristics cannot be neatly grouped into a single system. A study by Guy Hochman suggests that decision-making is a nuanced, interconnected process and that, depending on their type, heuristics may pertain to both systems.

In any case, the brain uses these mental shortcuts to conserve energy and make the decision-making process more efficient.

On this note, let’s discuss the benefits of heuristics.

Benefits of Heuristics

Below are the main benefits of heuristics:

• Efficiency. By enabling people to use mental shortcuts, heuristics eliminate the need for lengthy analysis, speeding up the decision-making and problem-solving processes.
• Practicality. Heuristics support fast and effective daily decision-making, which makes them highly practical. After all, most everyday choices (e.g., picking what to wear to work, which route to take home, etc.) don’t require deep analysis. They’re also useful when you’re making decisions with limited time or information.
• Reduced cognitive load. Analyzing every single option and detail requires lots of mental effort, putting you at risk of cognitive overload and decision fatigue. Heuristics can significantly reduce this risk, as mental shortcuts simplify decision-making, decreasing the amount of cognitive resources needed to process information.

Risks of Heuristics

By contrast, the main risk of heuristics is the increased likelihood of:

• Stereotyping. Heuristics can cause people to rely on subjective assumptions about others rather than objective information. Instead of seeing others as individuals, therefore, you may place them in general categories or judge them based on your past experiences. Such oversimplification can lead to prejudice and misinterpretation of people’s behavior.
• Poor decisions. While heuristics can help you come to conclusions faster, they can cause you to ignore alternatives or important information. As such, you may make ineffective or suboptimal decisions, even if they initially seem good enough.
• Cognitive biases. Heuristics can sometimes lead to systemic errors in thinking known as cognitive biases.

Now that you’re aware of what heuristics are and the psychology behind them, let’s discuss the link between heuristics and cognitive biases in more detail.

Heuristics and Cognitive Biases

Heuristics and cognitive biases are closely connected, as the former can lead to the latter when misused.

In most cases, heuristics help us make good judgments quickly. However, when applied inappropriately (e.g., if you focus on irrelevant information), they can lead to cognitive biases. These can distort your perception and judgment by affecting the way you interpret information, preventing you from making thoughtful, informed decisions.

For instance, if several colleagues catch the flu, you may decide to get a flu shot as you’re bringing your child to the doctor’s office. This is an example of the availability heuristic.

However, if you suddenly decide against getting vaccinated after seeing a news story about a rare allergic reaction to the shot, you may be experiencing the availabilitybias. This is because you’re overestimating the likelihood of risk based on a single example, which, in reality, is very low.

Therefore, heuristics can be helpful, but they can also lead to biased thinking and poor judgment. For this reason, it’s critical to be aware of their limitations and practice self-reflection to ensure your decisions are based on accurate information and evidence rather than misleading examples or flawed reasoning.

15 Examples of Heuristics in Everyday Life

Below are 15 real-life examples of heuristics that can help you spot these mental shortcuts in yourself and others:

Decision-Making

Some common examples of decision-making heuristics include:

• Affect heuristic: You decide to make a donation to an animal shelter after hearing a touching story about homeless dogs.
• Anchoring heuristic: You choose to buy a $100 dress, even if it costs more than you intended to spend, because it went for $150 when you first saw it in the store.
• Familiarity heuristic: You immediately order the same meal at a restaurant instead of exploring the menu.
• Availability heuristic: Although it’s sunny outside, you decide to take an umbrella when leaving the house after remembering that it rained heavily the past few days.
• Representativeness heuristic: You decide to buy from an online store with no reviews just because its website looks similar to that of trustworthy stores you know.

Work & Productivity

Here are some examples of heuristics in work behavior:

• Affect heuristic: You agree to work on a project because it excites you, even when you already have a lot on your plate.
• Anchoring heuristic: You accept a job offer without negotiating because the company offers you better pay than the one you applied to before.
• Familiarity heuristic: You easily tackle tasks you already know how to perform but avoid or procrastinate on unfamiliar ones.
• Availability heuristic: You start worrying about job security and begin looking for a new employer after hearing that several people at your company have been laid off.
• Representativeness heuristic: You hire a candidate with a degree from the same university as other successful employees, even if they don’t meet all job requirements.

Relationships

Here’s what different types of heuristics might look like in relationships:

• Affect heuristic: You decide not to bring up an issue that’s bothering you because confronting your partner makes you feel anxious.
• Anchoring heuristic: You assume your date is looking for a serious long-term relationship because they brought you flowers on the first date.
• Familiarity heuristic: You stay in a relationship you aren’t fully happy in just because the dynamic feels familiar and predictable.
• Availability heuristic: You overestimate the frequency of arguments in your relationship because you remember the few fights you had very vividly.
• Representativeness heuristic: You decide not to pursue a relationship with someone because their communication style reminds you of a previous partner who was emotionally unavailable.

Hopefully, these examples gave you a clearer idea of what heuristics are in practical terms. Next, let’s see how they relate to personality and the Enneagram framework.

How Heuristics Relate to Personality and the Enneagram

People of all personality types may rely on certain heuristics, such as anchoring, to make quick decisions. However, other mental shortcuts are more prevalent among some Enneagram types than others due to their distinct thought and behavioral patterns, motivations, and decision-making processes.

For example, the affect heuristic is most common in Helpers (Twos) and Individualists (Fours), as these types often make decisions based on their feelings. Enthusiasts (Sevens), too, can get carried away by excitement or other emotions.

Loyalists (Sixes), meanwhile, yearn for safety and predictability. As such, their use of the availability heuristic often leads to biased thinking, causing them to overestimate the dangers surrounding them. Since they find comfort in the familiar and may fear the unknown, they also often use the familiarity heuristic. This mental shortcut is also common among Peacemarkers (Nines).

Achievers (Threes), on the other hand, often rely on the representativeness heuristic in social settings; since they value image and status, they may prefer to associate themselves with people who remind them of other successful individuals they know.

That said, Investigators (Fives) are the least likely to rely on heuristics, especially when making complex decisions. These individuals are known for their analytical skills and hunger for knowledge. However, this makes them prone to overthinking; relying more on heuristics could, in fact, help them escape the cycle of endless analysis without action.

Ultimately, understanding the link between heuristics and personality can improve your self-awareness, support self-reflection, and prevent predictable errors in judgment. In doing so, it reduces the likelihood of cognitive biases, facilitating informed decision-making.

How to Recognize and Improve Your Use of Heuristics

Here are some actionable tips to help you recognize and improve your use of heuristics:

• Practice self-reflection. Pause and reflect on your past choices. Try to identify common patterns, see which heuristics you usually rely on, and note if you’ve ever overlooked important information when making decisions. If you tend to misuse heuristics, keeping a decision-making journal can help you recognize these patterns and improve your judgment.
• Consider alternatives. Instead of choosing the first option that pops into your mind, check for better alternatives when making decisions. This can even be applied to everyday choices you’ve been automatically making for years; for instance, you may realize that taking a different route to work is actually more fuel-efficient.
• Seek diverse perspectives. When making important decisions, don’t hesitate to reach out to your friends, family, or other people for insight. They may help you see things from a different perspective, identify your blind spots, and, in turn, reduce cognitive biases.

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Key Takeaways

By now, you should know exactly what heuristics are and how to recognize them.

So, let’s wrap up this article by summarizing the key points we learned today:

• There are numerous types of mental shortcuts, including anchoring, availability, familiarity, representativeness, and affect heuristics.
• Heuristics reduce cognitive load and promote practical, efficient decision-making, but they can lead to stereotyping, suboptimal decisions, and cognitive biases when poorly applied.
• To improve your use of these mental shortcuts, practice self-reflection, explore alternative options, and discuss your decisions with others.

What Are Heuristics FAQs

#1. What’s the difference between heuristics and cognitive biases?

The difference between heuristics and cognitive biases lies in their nature and outcome. According to Vitaliy Nadurak from King Danylo University, heuristics are simple, intuitive rules of judgment and decision-making that usually produce desirable results. Meanwhile, cognitive biases occur when we misuse heuristics or rely on irrelevant information to make judgments.

#2. Can understanding heuristics help with growth?

Yes, understanding heuristics can help with growth because it shines light on your thought patterns and decision-making process. Besides promoting self-reflection, this can help you refine your problem-solving abilities and make conscious, thoughtful decisions.

#3. How do heuristics differ from intuition?

Heuristics differ from intuition in that they can be applied consciously or unconsciously, whereas intuition happens without conscious awareness. It is an immediate understanding that arises as the unconscious mind rapidly integrates multiple pieces of information. Heuristics, by contrast, are simple rules of thumb that may also be applied deliberately to simplify decisions.