Applying Simplifying Heuristics when Making Judgment under Uncertainty – A Field Study

Abstract

This paper studies the so-called Take the Best (TTB) and the other two related heuristics which are Take the last (TTL) and the Minimalist heuristics to collect more evidence on these heuristics and then make comparison on performance of these heuristics’ potential users who have different degree of knowledge. People actually adhere to the recognition heuristics (RH) so often when facing inferential choice between a recognized object and a novel one. It is a main purpose of our empirical field study to look for evidence on what decision makers really do to arrive at their final choice in cases where both objects in the choice task are recognized. Will they still stick to recognition cue, or will they follow TTB or TTL or the Minimalist heuristic or will they resort to other type of strategies? Our results are somehow ambiguous. In sum, the cues the participants really picked up from their minds when taking the task and revealed by themselves in the interviews are more diverse and complicated than the anticipated ones.