Fast and Frugal Heuristics: The Tools of Bounded Rationality
Published 1 January 2004Open access
Gerd Gigerenzer
Citations468
Generate an AI Snapshot to get a quick, structured summary of this paper.
Study Snapshot
ObjectiveStudy objective
MethodsResearch methodology
PopulationPopulation studied
Sample sizeSample sizes
OutcomesStudy outcomes here
ResultsStudy results comes here
LimitationsResearch study limitations comes here
A concise AI-generated summary of the paper will appear here once you click Generate AI Snapshot.
Abstract
This chapter contains section titled: Introduction What is a Heuristic? What is Bounded Rationality? Models of Heuristics Recognition Heuristic Heuristics Based on Reasons Ecological Rationality How Do People Know Which Heuristic to Use? Robustness The Building Blocks of Heuristics The Adaptive Toolbox
Keywords
Decision SciencesBusiness, Management and Accounting
ScienceJudgment under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases
28,003 Citations1974Amos Tversky, Daniel Kahneman
Three heuristics that are employed in making judgements under uncertainty are described: representativeness, availability of instances or scenarios, which is often employed when people are asked to assess the frequency of a class or the plausibility of a particular development.
Judgment under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases
23,088 Citations1975Amos Tversky, Daniel Kahneman
Springer series in statisticsInformation Theory and an Extension of the Maximum Likelihood Principle
17,886 Citations1998H. Akaike
The Quarterly Journal of EconomicsA BEHAVIORAL MODEL OF RATIONAL CHOICE
15,263 Citations1955Herbert A. Simon
The Selfish Gene
10,510 Citations1976Richard Dawkins
Cambridge University Press eBooksJudgment under Uncertainty
8,011 Citations1982Kahneman, Daniel 1934-2024, Slovic, Paul 1938- +1 more
Ornithological ApplicationsCulture and the Evolutionary Process
7,218 Citations1986James R. Griesemer, Robert Boyd +1 more
Psychological ReviewRational choice and the structure of the environment.
5,893 Citations1956H. A. Simon
A comparative examination of the models of adaptive behavior employed in psychology and economics shows that in almost all respects the latter postulate a much greater complexity in the choice mechanisms, and a much larger capacity in the organism for obtaining information and performing computations than do the former.
Neural ComputationBayesian Interpolation
4,377 Citations1992David Mackay
The Bayesian approach to regularization and model-comparison is demonstrated by studying the inference problem of interpolating noisy data by examining the posterior probability distribution of regularizing constants and noise levels.
The MIT Press eBooksModels of Bounded Rationality
4,159 Citations1997Herbert A. Simon
Part 1 The structure of complex systems: Causal ordering - causality in economic models causal ordering, comparative statics, and near decomposability, simulating large systems - simulation of large-scale systems by aggregation prediction and prescription in systems modelling.
Cambridge University Press eBooksThe Adaptive Decision Maker
3,430 Citations1993John W. Payne, James R. Bettman +1 more
The adaptive decision maker: a look backward and a look forward Appendix Footnotes Bibliography.
Journal of the Operational Research SocietyThe Adaptive Decision Maker.
3,363 Citations1994Charles Leave, John W. Payne +2 more
Journal of Personality and Social PsychologyWhen choice is demotivating: Can one desire too much of a good thing?
2,603 Citations2000Sheena S. Iyengar, Mark R. Lepper
The organization of learning
2,463 Citations1990C. R. Gallistel
Cognitive Adaptations for Social Exchange
2,416 Citations1992Leda Cosmides, John Tooby
It is argued that humans have a faculty of social cognition, consisting of a rich collection of dedicated, functionally specialized, interrelated modules organized to collectively guide thought and behavior with respect to the evolutionarily recurrent adaptive problems posed by the social world.
American PsychologistThe robust beauty of improper linear models in decision making.
1,972 Citations1979Robyn M. Dawes
Psychological ReviewDecision field theory: A dynamic-cognitive approach to decision making in an uncertain environment.
1,907 Citations1993Jerome R. Busemeyer, James T. Townsend
Decision field theory provides for a mathematical foundation leading to a dynamic, stochastic theory of decision behavior in an uncertain environment and is compared with 4 other theories of decision making under uncertainty.
Journal of Political EconomyAllocative Efficiency of Markets with Zero-Intelligence Traders: Market as a Partial Substitute for Individual Rationality
1,650 Citations1993Dhananjay K. Gode, Shyam Sunder
How to Solve It: Modern Heuristics
1,633 Citations2004Zbigniew Michalewicz, David B. Fogel
This book discusses computational experiments with heuristic methods for solving practical problems and basic concepts of probability and Statistics, as well as an Evolutionary approach to decision-making.
Psychological ReviewProbabilistic mental models: A Brunswikian theory of confidence.
1,448 Citations1991Gerd Gigerenzer, Ulrich Hoffrage +1 more
A comprehensive framework for the theory of probabilistic mental models (PMM theory) is proposed, which explains both the overconfidence effect and the hard-easy effect and predicts conditions under which both effects appear, disappear, or invert.
Journal of Personality and Social PsychologyMaximizing versus satisficing: Happiness is a matter of choice.
1,332 Citations2002Barry Schwartz, Andrew Ward +4 more
Psychological ReviewOn the reality of cognitive illusions.
1,330 Citations1996Daniel Kahneman, Amos Tversky
The article responds to Gigerenzer's critique and shows that it misrepresents the authors' theoretical position and ignores critical evidence.
Psychological ReviewModels of ecological rationality: The recognition heuristic.
1,325 Citations2002Daniel G. Goldstein, Gerd Gigerenzer
The recognition heuristic, arguably the most frugal of all heuristics, makes inferences from patterns of missing knowledge that leads to the counterintuitive less-is-more effect in which less knowledge is better than more for making accurate inferences.
Journal of Personality and Social PsychologyMaximizing versus satisficing: Happiness is a matter of choice.
1,258 Citations2002Barry Schwartz, Andrew Ward +4 more
The present studies suggest that some people--maximizers--can feel worse off as the options they face increase, and the interaction between maximizing and choice is discussed in terms of regret, adaptation, and self-blame.
Adaptive Thinking: Rationality in the Real World
1,142 Citations2000Gerd Gigerenzer
Journal of Economic IssuesBounded Rationality: The Adaptive Toolbox
1,085 Citations2002Esther‐Mirjam Sent
Psychological ReviewOn narrow norms and vague heuristics: A reply to Kahneman and Tversky.
1,043 Citations1996Gerd Gigerenzer
Psychological ReviewA rational analysis of the selection task as optimal data selection.
1,012 Citations1994Mike Oaksford, Nick Chater
The experimental data is reassessed in the light of a Bayesian model of optimal data selection in inductive hypothesis testing that suggests that reasoning in hypothesis-testing tasks may be rational rather than subject to systematic bias.
Journal of Personality and Social PsychologyHalf a minute: Predicting teacher evaluations from thin slices of nonverbal behavior and physical attractiveness.
979 Citations1993Nalini Ambady, Robert Rosenthal
Quarterly Journal of Experimental PsychologyLearning 10000 pictures
977 Citations1973Lionel Standing
It is concluded that the superiority of the pictorial mode in recognition and free recall learning tasks is well established and cannot be attributed to methodological artifact.
British Journal of PsychologyThe elusive thematic‐materials effect in Wason's selection task
864 Citations1982Richard A. Griggs, James R. Cox
Psychological ReviewHow persuasive is a good fit? A comment on theory testing.
834 Citations2000Seth Roberts, Harold Pashler
A better way to test a theory with free parameters is to determine how the theory constrains possible outcomes, assess how firmly actual outcomes agree with those constraints, and determine if plausible alternative outcomes would have been inconsistent with the theory, allowing for the variability of the data.
Journal of Experimental Psychology Learning Memory and CognitionAge differences in recall and recognition.
763 Citations1987Fergus I. M. Craik, Joan M. McDowd
Behavioral and Brain SciencesPrécis of <i>Simple heuristics that make us smart</i>
704 Citations2000Peter M. Todd, Gerd Gigerenzer
It is shown how simple building blocks that control information search, stop search, and make decisions can be put together to form classes of heuristics, including: ignorance-based and one-reason decision making for choice, elimination models for categorization, and satisficing heuristic for sequential search.
The British Journal for the Philosophy of ScienceHow to Tell When Simpler, More Unified, or Less<i>Ad Hoc</i>Theories will Provide More Accurate Predictions
655 Citations1994MALCOLM FORSTER, Elliott Sober
It is argued that this approach throws light on the theoretical virtues of parsimoniousness, unification, and non ad hocness, on the dispute about Bayesianism, and on empiricism and scientific realism.
Journal of Experimental Psychology GeneralBecoming famous without being recognized: Unconscious influences of memory produced by dividing attention.
584 Citations1989Larry L. Jacoby, Vera Woloshyn +1 more
Journal of Behavioral Decision MakingThe ‘conjunction fallacy’ revisited: how intelligent inferences look like reasoning errors
452 Citations1999Ralph Hertwig, Gerd Gigerenzer
Psychology Press eBooksCognition as Intuitive Statistics
434 Citations2015Gerd Gigerenzer, David J. Murray
Choice Reviews OnlineInteractive minds: life-span perspectives on the social foundation of cognition
427 Citations1996
Psychological ReviewNaive empiricism and dogmatism in confidence research: A critical examination of the hard–easy effect.
368 Citations2000Peter Juslin, Anders Winman +1 more
A quantitative review of studies with 2-alternative general knowledge items demonstrates that there is very little support for a cognitive-processing bias in these data and near elimination of the hard-easy effect when there is control for scale-end effects and linear dependency.
Organizational Behavior and Human Decision ProcessesTake The First: Option-generation and resulting choices
367 Citations2003Joseph G. Johnson, Markus Raab
Acta PsychologicaHow much information does an expert use? Is it relevant?
360 Citations1992James Shanteau
The results from five studies show that experts often have the same (or fewer) number of significant cues as novices, but that the information used is more relevant, which has implications for measurement of expertise, analysis of expert tasks, and generalizability of conclusions about experts.
Theory and DecisionFast, frugal, and fit: Simple heuristics for paired comparison
322 Citations2002Laura Martignon, Ulrich Hoffrage
An overview of recent results on lexicographic, linear, and Bayesian models for paired comparison from a cognitive psychology perspective, and identifies the optimal model in each class, where optimality is defined with respect to performance when fitting known data.
Journal of Experimental Psychology Learning Memory and CognitionAssessing the empirical validity of the "Take-the-best" heuristic as a model of human probabilistic inference.
318 Citations2000Arndt Bröder
The boundedly rational 'Take-The-Best' heuristic was proposed by G. Gigerenzer, U. Hoffrage, and H. Kleinbölting as a model of fast and frugal probabilistic inferences but direct empirical demonstrations of its adequacy as a psychological model are lacking.
Mathematics and Plausible Reasoning, Volume 1: Induction and Analogy in Mathematics
308 Citations1954George Pólya
Journal of Experimental Psychology Learning Memory and CognitionDecision making with the "adaptive toolbox": Influence of environmental structure, intelligence, and working memory load.
305 Citations2003Arndt Bröder
In 2 experiments with a total of 220 participants, the tendency to use simple heuristics such as the take the best heuristic in an adaptive manner was investigated, supporting the notion of adaptive strategy selection.
Psychological BulletinParental investment: How an equity motive can produce inequality.
277 Citations2002Ralph Hertwig, Jennifer Nerissa Davis +1 more
The authors present a counterintuitive implication of the equity heuristic: Whereas an equity motive produces a fair distribution at any given point in time, it yields a cumulative distribution of investments that is unequal.
Psychonomic Bulletin & ReviewEvidence accumulation in decision making: Unifying the “take the best” and the “rational” models
274 Citations2004Michael Lee, Tarrant D.R. Cummins
The unified TTB and RAT models are shown to be able to capture the differences in decision making across participants in an interpretable way and is preferred by the minimum description length model selection criterion.
Psychological SciencePsychological Models of Professional Decision Making
252 Citations2003Mandeep K. Dhami
In both courts, a simple heuristic proved to be a better predictor of judicial decisions than a more complex model that instantiated the principles of due process.
Journal of Experimental Psychology GeneralTake The Best versus simultaneous feature matching: Probabilistic inferences from memory and effects of reprensentation format.
251 Citations2003Arndt Bröder, Stefanie Schiffer
In 4 experiments, the tendency to use the simple heuristic Take The Best was explored for probabilistic multiattribute inferences from memory and it was shown that the representational format may be an important moderating variable for strategy use.
Organizational Behavior and Human Decision ProcessesThe False Consensus Effect and Overconfidence: Flaws in Judgment or Flaws in How We Study Judgment?
244 Citations1996Robyn M. Dawes, Matthew Mulford
Psychological BulletinHow do we tell an association from a rule? Comment on Sloman (1996).
228 Citations1996Gerd Gigerenzer, Terry Regier
It is pointed out that “simultaneous contradictory belief,” which Sloman takes as evidence for separate associative and rule-based systems, need not be interpreted in this fashion and may also signal a number of other things, including the presence of linguistic ambiguity, competing lines of formal reasoning, and unclarified assumptions.
Experimental EconomicsBounded rationality in individual decision making
226 Citations1998Colin F. Camerer
Organizational Behavior and Human Decision ProcessesEmpirical tests of a fast-and-frugal heuristic: Not everyone “takes-the-best”
222 Citations2003Ben R. Newell, Nicola Weston +1 more
When do people use simple heuristics, and how can we tell?
219 Citations1999Jörg Rieskamp, Ulrich Hoffrage
Evidence suggests that heuristics with a cue-wise information search can describe individuals' decision strategies for choice tasks, and results indicate that people indeed use smart and simple decision strategies.
Journal of Economic PsychologyIdentifying and analysing dominant preferences in discrete choice experiments: An application in health care
198 Citations2002Anthony Scott
The assumption that goods are traded-off to maximise utility underpins many choice-based empirical methods used to elicit stated preferences and is tested and examined in the context of a discrete choice experiment that examined stated preferences for different models of out of hours care provided by General Practitioners.
Journal of Experimental Psychology Learning Memory and CognitionTake the best or look at the rest? Factors influencing "one-reason" decision making.
187 Citations2003Ben R. Newell, David R. Shanks
Organizational Behavior and Human Decision ProcessesFast, frugal, and rational: How rational norms explain behavior
182 Citations2003Nick Chater, Mike Oaksford +2 more
Journal of Behavioral Decision MakingBailing and jailing the fast and frugal way
181 Citations2001Mandeep K. Dhami, Peter Ayton
Journal of Personality and Social PsychologyThe impact of information on small group choice.
172 Citations1997Daniel Gigone, Reid Hastie
PubMedWhat alters physicians' decisions to admit to the coronary care unit?
165 Citations1997Lee A. Green, David R. Mehr
Physicians introduced to a decision-support tool achieved optimal CCU utilization without actually performing probability estimations, which may have resulted from improved focus on relevant clinical factors identified by the tool.
More Is Not Always Better: The Benefits of Cognitive Limits
165 Citations2003Ralph Hertwig, Peter M. Todd
Journal of Behavioral Decision MakingBayesian strategy assessment in multi‐attribute decision making
165 Citations2003Arndt Bröder, Stefanie Schiffer
A Bayesian method is developed that is able to assess, whether an empirical data vector was most likely generated by a ‘Take The Best’ heuristic, by an equal weight rule, or a compensatory strategy, and it showed convergent validity with Process Tracing measures in an experiment.
Proceedings of the National Academy of SciencesInterface between culturally based preferences and genetic preferences: female mate choice in Poecilia reticulata.
161 Citations1996Lee Alan Dugatkin
This experiment provides the first attempt to experimentally examine the relative strength of cultural and genetic preferences for a particular trait and suggests that these two factors moderate one another in shaping social behavior.
Journal of Experimental Psychology Learning Memory and CognitionAre judgments of the positional frequencies of letters systematically biased due to availability?
142 Citations1998Peter Sedlmeier, Ralph Hertwig +1 more
RePEc: Research Papers in EconomicsModels of a Man: Essays in Memory of Herbert A. Simon
128 Citations2004Mie Augier, James G. March
This book (the title is a variation on the title of Simon's autobiography, Models of My Life) is a collection of short essays by colleagues from many fields who felt Simon's influence and mourn his loss.
The LancetDecision analysis in patient care
126 Citations2001Glyn Elwyn, Adrian Edwards +2 more
The potential application of decision analysis is discussed and the usefulness and feasibility of the technique for patients is examined, particularly in settings where clinical presentations are diverse and characterised by uncertainty.
Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent MedicineUse of Simple Heuristics to Target Macrolide Prescription in Children With Community-Acquired Pneumonia
104 Citations2002Joachim E. Fischer, Felicitas Steiner +6 more
In children with CAP, simple clinical decision rules identify patients at risk for M pneumoniae infection by comparing the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve of the following 2 prediction models: a scoring system derived from logistic regression analysis and a fast-and-frugal decision tree.
Thinking & ReasoningFast and frugal versus regression models of human judgement
102 Citations2001Mandeep K. Dhami, Clare Harries
Experimental Brain ResearchDevelopment of gaze tracking of small and large objects
92 Citations2002Kerstin Rosander, Claes von Hofsten
The results do not support the concept of two separate systems, the OKR and the SP, each of them processing eye tracking of small and large objects.
Animal Learning & BehaviorFurther evidence that Norway rats do not socially transmit learned aversions to toxic baits
74 Citations1990Bennett G. Galef, Laurel M. McQuoid +1 more
The MIT Press eBooksStriking a Blow for Sanity in Theories of Rationality
71 Citations2004Gerd Gigerenzer
Journal of Experimental Psychology Human Perception & PerformanceBaseball outfielders maintain a linear optical trajectory when tracking uncatchable fly balls.
60 Citations2002Dennis M. Shaffer, Michael K. McBeath
Findings support the LOT strategy as primary when pursuing balls headed to the side, whether catchable or not.
Animal Learning & BehaviorSocial influences on the identification of toxic foods by Norway rats
59 Citations1987Bennett G. Galef
The results indicate that information acquired from conspecifics as to the diets they have eaten can play an important role in determining the foods to which otherwise naive rats will learn aversions.
Perception & PsychophysicsComparing exemplar-retrieval and decision-bound models of speeded perceptual classification
53 Citations1997Robert M. Nosofsky, Thomas J. Palmeri
The authors compared the exemplar-based random-walk model of Nosofsky and Palmeri (1997) and the decision-bound model (DBM) of Ashby and Maddox (1994; Maddox & Ashby, 1996) on their ability to predict performance in Garner's (1974) speeded classification tasks, and found that both models yielded reasonably good global quantitative fits to the RT distribution and accuracy data.
Internet Archive (Internet Archive)Autobiography of Charles Darwin 1809-1882
40 Citations1969Charles Darwin, Nora Barlow
Psychonomic Bulletin & ReviewWhen wrong predictions provide more support than right ones
29 Citations2002Craig R. M. McKenzie, Marsha B. Amin
Quality & QuantityTake The Best, Dawes' Rule, and Compensatory Decision Strategies: A Regression-based Classification Method
26 Citations2002Arndt Bröder
Organizational Behavior and Human Decision ProcessesProbabilistic Mental Models with Continuous Predictors
25 Citations2000David W. Slegers, Gregory L. Brake +1 more
The 7 +/- 2 model predicts binary judgments as well as a multiple-regression model, but does not successfully predict the probability judgments of individual participants, which is also true of all other models in the literature.
Risk Perception and the Perceived Public
24 Citations1992Lola L. Lopes
The Adaptive Toolbox and Lifespan Development: Common Questions?
23 Citations2003Gerd Gigerenzer
This chapter explores the relationship between the vision of bounded rationality as an adaptive toolbox and the view of development as selection-optimization-compensation and asks whether there is a fruitful transfer of ideas and questions.
Personality and Social Psychology BulletinCovariation-Based Attribution: On the Ability to Assess Multiple Covariates of an Effect
20 Citations1999Klaus Fiedler, Eva Walther +1 more
…