Running Head: REFLECTION PAPER 1

Reflective Paper on anchoring and adjustment heuristics

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REFLECTION PAPER 2

Reflective Paper on anchoring and adjustment heuristics

We regularly devote our waking lives to making decisions following particular judgment.
The decisions could be based on various things like determining when to quit job and live a
particular dream or when to do something in life people use different sorts of information to
arrive at a decision regarding their problem in what is referred to as social judgment theory
(Hardman, 2009). At times the information made could be appropriate or inappropriate based on
several parameters decision-making and judgment. Of particular interest to my reflection is
heuristics and how it impedes judgment in the decision-making process.
Anchoring and adjustment heuristics forms one of the most important areas of judgment
and decision making I learned about in the modules. People use heuristics to hasten the decision
making and judgment. Although decisions from such a perspective would come with
shortcomings, it is worth mentioning that such shortcuts involved in heuristics are crucial since
there could be no time to walk to everyone in search of information before making a decision.
All in all, it would not be critical to embrace heuristics in every aspect of decision making
because at times the decisions made lead to the undesirable outcome. Despite all these, I learned
that there could be fun in trying out the mental tricks of heuristics.
The anchoring and adjustment are one of the forms that comprise heuristics. In this form
of heuristics, people tend to anchor onto a fundamental piece of information and then through
interactions they adjust away from this piece until they end up with a decision that seems
reasonable (del Campo, Pauser, Steiner, & Vetschera, 2016). I came to realize that such a form
of heuristic is critical only if the fundamental information never abstracts the pursuit of achieving
a correct answer and in another way, it is relevant to the present decision.
In order to come up with the right decision, the modules pointed out that an individual
must have adequate information regarding the subject matter of the problem. This brings about
the importance of availability heuristic. In this kind of heuristic, it is important to make a
decision following the availability of examples existing in mind regarding the problem. So, an
individual must be well acquainted with the area he/she wishes to make the decision. Lack of
such examples can lead to underestimation of the sources required to make a decision. For
instance, if were to judge death rate accrued by different causes then you will find most people
overestimating the magnitude of deaths caused by airplane crashes while underestimating deaths
arising from diseases such as asthma. One reason for such a decision is acquaintances with
information. People hear in the news about airplane crashes more frequently to the extent that the
examples they have in mind could be countless. On the contrary, asthma information could be
low with a few examples that can never outdo the former. However, it does not actually mean
that fewer people die of asthma, it is just that the news never focuses on these circumstances so
much. In fact, most people die of diseases more than just airplane crash (Lempert, 2015).
Conclusively, heuristics can speed up the process of solving problems. However, it can
lead to gross errors in judgment and decision making. It does not mean that something that
worked a previously may work in the present time perfectly. Thus, we should not use heuristics
to enhance bias while hindering ourselves from seeing other alternatives. Therefore, being aware
of heuristics and how it works as well as the biases involved may be helpful in making better and
more accurate decisions.
REFLECTION PAPER 3

References
Del Campo, C., Pauser, S., Steiner, E., & Vetschera, R. (2016). Decision-making styles and the
use of heuristics in decision making. Journal of Business Economics, 86(4), 389-412.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11573-016-0811-y
Hardman, D. (2009). Judgment and decision making (1st ed.). Malden, MA: BPS Blackwell.
Lempert, K. (2015). What are Heuristics? Representative vs. Availability Heuristics.
Blog.cambridgecoaching.com. Retrieved 27 April 2017, from
http://blog.cambridgecoaching.com/the-psychology-tutor-what-are-heuristics