A heuristic is a general problem-solving framework (Tversky & Kahneman, 1974). You can think of these as mental shortcuts that are used to solve problems. Different types of heuristics are used in different types of situations, and the impulse to use a heuristic occurs when one of five conditions is met (Pratkanis, 1989):

In order to make good decisions, we use our knowledge and our reasoning. Often, this knowledge and reasoning is sound and solid. However, sometimes, we are swayed by biases or by others manipulating a situation. For example, let’s say you and three friends wanted to rent a house and had a combined target budget of $1,600. The realtor shows you only very run-down houses for $1,600 and then shows you a very nice house for $2,000. Might you ask each person to pay more in rent to get the...

Hindsight bias leads you to believe that the event you just experienced was predictable, even though it really wasn’t. In other words, you knew all along that things would turn out the way they did. Can you relate this to the phrase "Hindsight is 20/20" now? 

According to some social psychologists, people tend to overemphasize internal factors as explanations—or attributions—for the behavior of other people. They tend to assume that the behavior of another person is a trait of that person, and to underestimate the power of the situation on the behavior of others. They tend to fail to recognize when the behavior of another is due to situational variables, and thus to the person’s state. This erroneous assumption is...

Scientists typically make repeated measurements of a quantity to ensure the quality of their findings and to evaluate both the precision and the accuracy of their results. Measurements are said to be precise if they yield very similar results when repeated in the same manner. A measurement is considered accurate if it yields a result that is very close to the true or the accepted value. Precise values agree with each other; accurate values agree with a true value. 

Random or indeterminate errors originate from various uncontrollable variables, such as variations in environmental conditions, instrument imperfections, or the inherent variability of the phenomena being measured. Usually, these errors cannot be predicted, estimated, or characterized because their direction and magnitude often vary in magnitude and direction even during consecutive measurements. As a result, they are difficult to eliminate. However, the aggregate effect of these errors can be...