Overview
When making decisions or judgments, we often take shortcuts in our reasoning. We use intuition, best guesses, or tried-and-true techniques, often at a level beyond our awareness. Quick cognitive rules that we tend to follow with little effort are called heuristics. Consider heuristics as ways of thinking or making decisions that require little effort but still tend to work well most of the time. We don’t plan or make efforts to use heuristics; they just come easily without our awareness. However, heuristics often lead to flaws or fallacies in our reasoning and systematic biases in our judgment. The Decision Lab is a great online resource that uses decades of research in decision science to educate the public and consult with businesses and corporations on decision-making. It has many resources, including podcasts, success stories, and a page that describes the different types of heuristics, bias, fallacies, and predictable ways we think irrationally. They provide descriptions and examples of each biased way of thinking. In this lab, you will use this resource to learn about decision-making and judgment, describe how some of them affect you, and finally, fill out a crossword puzzle.
Instructions
- Go to the Decision Lab website and navigate the resource page on biases. https://thedecisionlab.com/biases-index
- Download the worksheet (below).
- Navigate through the 20 different heuristics, fallacies, and biases listed in the worksheet by reading their descriptions and examples.
- Pick three of the 20 biases you found most interesting, and provide a description of how they apply to your life or your interest in psychology. Use the table in the worksheet.
- Go to the crossword that was created based on the bias page of the Decision Lab. https://crosswordlabs.com/view/heuristics-biases-and-fallacies. Fill out the crossword using the Decision Lab resource as a reference. Download your complete crossword puzzle.
- Submit the worksheet and crossword puzzle for your assignment.
- The instructions are explained in the how-to video.
Worksheet and How-To Video
The worksheet
Psychology Labs and Hub 