Heuristic
MCAT glossary · Psychological, Social & Biological Foundations of Behavior
Definition
A mental shortcut that yields fast judgments at the cost of occasional systematic error.
Heuristic in plain English
A heuristic is your brain's rule-of-thumb — a quick mental shortcut that skips careful analysis so you can decide fast. Most of the time these shortcuts serve you well (you don't calculate the odds before crossing an empty street), but because they cut corners, they can misfire in predictable ways. For example, people often judge how common something is by how easily examples pop to mind, which makes rare-but-scary events feel more likely than they are. The key idea is that the errors aren't random — they lean in consistent directions, which is why psychologists study them.
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Practice Heuristic
A psychologist conducts a study where participants are… Which heuristic explains this error?
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