The Theoretical Status of Judgmental Heuristics

Abstract

The recent marked shift in empirical research on judgment from testing normative models to investigating people's biases and heuristics has been extremely valuable in many respects. However, it also has certain shortcomings as would be expected with any major change in research focus. There are three interrelated problems: (1) an almost excessive concern with the three heuristics of representativeness, availability, anchoring, and adjustment, (2) a tendency toward treating the classification of heuristics as explanation, and (3) a lack of rigorous theory development. A lack of rigorous theory development is the most serious problem. This chapter reviews the literature to summarize some of the effects for which any complete theory must account and to indicate problems with some experiments that become apparent when considering theoretical explanations.