Collective intelligence Collective action Self-organized criticality Herd mentality Phase transition Agent-based modelling Synchronization Ant colony optimization Particle swarm optimization Swarm behaviour Social network analysis Small-world networks Centrality Motifs Graph theory Scaling Robustness Systems biology Dynamic networks Evolutionary computation Genetic algorithms Genetic programming Artificial life Machine learning Evolutionary developmental biology Artificial intelligence Evolutionary robotics Reaction–diffusion systems Partial differential equations Dissipative structures Percolation Cellular automata Spatial ecology Self-replication Conversation theory Entropy Feedback Goal-oriented Homeostasis Information theory Operationalization Second-order cybernetics Self-reference System dynamics Systems science Systems thinking Sensemaking Variety Ordinary differential equations Phase space Attractors Population dynamics Chaos Multistability Bifurcation Rational choice theory Bounded rationality A heuristic[1] or heuristic technique (problem solving, mental shortcut, rule of thumb)[2][3][4][5] is any approach to problem solving that employs a pragmatic method that is not fully optimized, perfected, or rationalized, but is nevertheless "good enough" as an approximation or attribute substitution.
[13]Gigerenzer & Gaissmaier (2011) state that sub-sets of strategy include heuristics, regression analysis, and Bayesian inference.
[14] A heuristic is a strategy that ignores part of the information, with the goal of making decisions more quickly, frugally, and/or accurately than more complex methods (Gigerenzer and Gaissmaier [2011], p. 454; see also Todd et al. [2012], p.
[15]Heuristics are strategies based on rules to generate optimal decisions, like the anchoring effect and utility maximization problem.
[16] These strategies depend on using readily accessible, though loosely applicable, information to control problem solving in human beings, machines and abstract issues.
[19] The most fundamental heuristic is trial and error, which can be used in everything from matching nuts and bolts to finding the values of variables in algebra problems.
[69] The study of heuristics in human decision-making was developed in the 1970s and the 1980s, by the psychologists Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman,[81] although the concept had been originally introduced by the Nobel laureate Herbert A. Simon.
Simon's original primary object of research was problem solving that showed that we operate within what he calls bounded rationality.
He coined the term satisficing, which denotes a situation in which people seek solutions, or accept choices or judgements, that are "good enough" for their purposes although they could be optimised.
At some times, roughly speaking, individuals consider issues rationally, systematically, logically, deliberately, effortfully, and verbally.
[91] From this perspective, heuristics are part of a larger experiential processing system that is often adaptive, but vulnerable to error in situations that require logical analysis.
[92] In 2002, Daniel Kahneman and Shane Frederick proposed that cognitive heuristics work by a process called attribute substitution, which happens without conscious awareness.
[98] Seminal works include Karl Popper's The Logic of Scientific Discovery and others by Imre Lakatos,[99] Lindley Darden, and William C. Wimsatt.
[100] The present securities regulation regime largely assumes that all investors act as perfectly rational persons.
In this case, the somewhat arbitrary delineation is used because it is impossible or impractical to tell whether an individual is sufficiently mature for society to trust them with that kind of responsibility.
This would put youth alcohol policy more on a case-by-case basis and less on a heuristic one, since the completion of such a course would presumably be voluntary and not uniform across the population.
It is therefore argued that it is in society's best interest that inventors receive a temporary government-granted monopoly on their idea, so that they can recoup investment costs and make economic profit for a limited period.
Anchoring is the tendency of people to make future judgements or conclusions based too heavily on the original information supplied to them.
Stereotypes, as first described by journalist Walter Lippmann in his book Public Opinion (1922), are the pictures we have in our heads that are built around experiences as well as what we are told about the world.