Describe a personal example of when judgmental heuristics influenced a

decision you made. What was the situation, what occurred, what was the
result? In retrospect, what did you learn from this experience?
Whether we realize it or not, we use judgmental heuristics everyday in the
choice we make. They are mental shortcuts that help us to make decision
whether good or bad. There are 2 types of judgmental heuristics:
availability heuristic and representative heuristic. Availability heuristic is
making decisions based on information from memory. Representative
heuristic is to assess the likelihood of an event occurring by comparing it to
similar occurrences (Kreitner, R. & Kinicki, A. pg. 335-336). An example
that comes to mind is relationships. When meeting individuals, we form an
opinion within the first few minutes after being around them whether they
are someone I can associate with. The behavior they display immediately
reminds us of something we know or have thought about and we will form
an assessment based on that. I met a nice man and we hit it off
immediately and began dating. After dating for a while, the things I
thought were really nice the expensive dinners, shopping sprees, nice
concerts, trips, etcall had a price and that price was control. "People not
only consider what they recall in making a judgment but also use the ease
or difficulty with which that content comes to mind as an additional source
of information. Most notably, they only rely on the content of their recall if
its implications are not called into question by the difficulty that they
experience in bringing the relevant material to mind (Schwarz, Bless,
Strack, Klumpp, Rittenauer-Schatka & Simons, 1991). This is represents the
availability heuristic in that we as young girls form a fairy tale of the perfect
life as mentioned above and if given the opportunity will not turn it down,
who would? During dinner one Sunday with some of his friends, he was
discussing a situation that had happened early that day at church he
pastors and I began to voice my opinion. The other women at the table
werent saying anything but looked at me like I was doing something
wrong. Being the person I am, I continued until I had expressed my
thoughts on the subject. After dinner, on the way home, I was informed,
more or less, if I wanted to continue to enjoy the finer life, I would have to
learn to fit in. Well, needless to say, we went our separate ways. In
retrospect, I enjoyed the experience but I refuse to change who I am just to
live in the fairy tale world and sacrifice my integrity in the process.

Kreitner, R. (2013). Chapter 12/Individual and group decision making. In

A. Kinicki (Ed.), Organizational Behaviior (10th ed., pp. 335-336). New
York, NY: McGraw-Hill/Irwin.
Schwarz, Bless, Strack, Klumpp, Rittenauer-Schatka, & Simons. (1991).
Ease of retrieval as information: Another look at the availability heuristic
[Abstract]. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 61(2), 195-202.
Retrieved March 5, 2014, from
http://psychology.about.com/od/aindex/g/availability-heuristic.htm