When do people use simple heuristics, and how can we tell?

(from the chapter) Examined whether people use simple heuristics and discussed 2 possible approaches to identifying these strategies: process analysis and outcome analysis. The authors describe various decision strategies and outline an experiment in which participants had to choose among alternatives under low and high time pressure. The process- and outcome-oriented approaches are described and the experiment is used as an illustration for the methodological problems in identifying strategies. The authors review some studies that have investigated conditions that should have an impact on decision strategies, including time pressure. Evidence suggests that heuristics with a cue-wise information search can describe individuals' decision strategies for choice tasks. Results indicate that people indeed use smart and simple decision strategies. ((c) 2000 APA/PsycINFO, all rights reserved)