Simulation Heuristic
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Heuristics
Heuristics are mental shortcuts used by individuals in order to make decisions quickly and easily. They allow an individual to use a minimal amount of cognition to make a decision based on “quick estimates” about the likelihood of “uncertain events”(Baumeister 161). Although heuristics help people to make decisions and function in a complex world, they can also lead to inaccurate decisions and judgments.
What is the Simulation Heuristic?
The Simulation Heuristic was identified by Kahneman and Tversky in their studies of heuristics and how they help humans think about complex problems with simplified mental strategies.(1982). The simulation heuristic is a more specific form of the availability heuristic that explains why people experience regret and use counterfactual thinking. Simply stated the simulation heuristic pertains to how likely one thinks an outcome will occur. They state that the “ease with which simulation” of an outcome “is used to judge the propensity of the (real) system to produce that state” ( Kahneman Tversky 1982). Specifically, there are five general instances when people revert to using the simulation heuristic. The first of which is the simulation of an event of which an individual has no prior information and must make a general prediction. An example would be the first meeting of two strangers. This heuristic could also be used to judge the probabilities of certain events occurring. This differs from using the simulation heuristic for predictions because there is either a “specified target state” or a “specified initial state”(Kahneman Tversky 1981). A fourth use of the simulation heuristic would be in a counterfactual assessment. This would be a simulation of how events would have occurred differently if one aspect of the situation had changed. An example given by Kahneman and Tversky is if Nazi Germany had succeeded in producing the atomic bomb, what effect that would have had on the outcome of World War II (Kahneman, Tversky 1981). The fifth use of the simulation heuristic according to Kahneman and Tversky would be for assessing causality. This would be to determine if event A caused event B. An individual would simulate in his mind if the occurrence of one event increased the “propensity” of the subsequent event.
Initial Studies
Initial experiments and studies were conducted using various hypothetical situations that participants read and responded to. The scenarios followed the five outlines that Kahneman and Tversky had created for the simulation heuristic. One of the first studies to take place determined the effects of counterfactual assessment. The story created for the study described two individuals who were scheduled to take a flight. The first individual missed his scheduled flight because he was thirty minutes late in arriving at the airport. However, in the other situation the individual missed his flight by merely a few minutes because the flight had been delayed although this person was thirty minutes late in arriving at the airport as well. Objectively, both individuals missed their flights. However, 96% of the participants deemed that the individual who missed his flight by a few minutes would have been more upset (Kahneman and Tversky 1981). The authors suggest that this is because participants were able to simulate in their minds the misfortune of the individual who had just missed his flight by a few minutes. Another study involving participants reacting to scenarios created by the authors determines the use of the simulation heuristic in “undoing the past.” In this study participants were given two scenarios both involving fatal car crashes. In one the timing of the crash differed while in the other the route of the crash differed from the normal route. In this study, participants were asked to play the role of a family member to the individual in the car crash and to complete the statement “if only.” (Kahneman and Tversky, 1982). Participants were more likely to convert an unusual circumstance such as the different route being taken to the regular route being taken to a more “normal” and characteristic one. This depicts how people think about situations and compare them to a simulation that they have in their minds. This “undoing of the past” is another aspect of counterfactual thinking that was studied by Kahneman and Tversky.
Errors caused by use of the Simulation Heuristic
Kahneman and his colleagues made many such hypothetical situations to assess if the simulation heuristic was involved in how people viewed the outcomes of events. In general, they found that the more people could simulate the situation in their minds, the more they felt it was likely to occur in real life. However, they also outlined three ways in which decision made with the help of the simulation heuristic could be misleading or incorrect. Decisions could be flawed because they over-estimated the likelihood of certain events and underestimated the likelihood of others. Possible reasons for such errors would include being “biased to a scenario is which dramatic changes take place” and underestimating the likelihood of an event where smaller changes take place to alter the outcome..(Kahneman 207). “Dramatic events mark causal transitions” and in observing more drastic changes in a story, people would be able to simulate it more easily in their minds. This finding deems that there is clearly an error in the way that people Overall Kahneman and Tversky concluded that the simulation Heuristic is “associated with a risk of large and systematic errors” due to the inaccuracy with which people can simulate outcomes and probabilities in their minds. (Kahneman 208).
Recent Studies
The experiments that Kahneman and Tversky (1982) created were repeated by Wells, Taylor and Turtle in 1987. They added to the theory and supported the findings that “unusual events are more likely to be undone” by a participant (Trabasso Bartalone 905). This is because unusual events evoke normal alternatives. Another study conducted in 1986 by Kahneman and Miller discusses the tendency of people to revert to the norm and negate unusual events. The findings of Kahneman and Tversky (1982) are wide ranging and applicable to many people. This is because most people have regrets and the simulation heuristic is one way to explain how such emotions and regrets surface. “Emotional Amplification” can account for some of the strong emotions people feel when an outcome is different than the one people easily imagine.(Gilovish and Husted Medvec 1995). This is another key to understanding that simulation of an event can be connected to emotions that an individual feels when the events do not occur in the way which they had predicted. By comparing reality to a more positive outcome through counterfactual thinking people feel worse. Whereas by comparing reality to a more negative outcome people feel better. This determines how people think, act and make decisions and also depicts how the simulation heuristic not only impacts the judgments that humans make but also impacts their emotions. (Gilovich and Husted Medvic 1995).
Modern Implications
The Simulation Heuristic is generally a way that people arrive at conclusions about what they feel will happen in a situation using the template they have in their minds for the most “normal” outcome. However, there are many other ways that this heuristic can be used today. The hindsight bias depicts how showing jurors a clearer computer graphic simulation of an event such as an accident impacts how valid they think the simulation is. This further solidifies the point that the more easily an event can be simulated in one’s mind the more likely people feel it is to occur. (Roese et al.) This is a situation in which foresight takes precedence over hindsight meaning that even if the jurors were uncertain about the event occurring seeing a clear simulated outcome assures them of that outcome being the correct one. Clearly, this type of assertion could cause jurors to make an incorrect decision proving how the incorrect judgments made through the use of the simulation heuristic can have negative outcomes. (Roese et al).
Conclusion
The simulation heuristic can be defined as a simplified mental strategy that is used in order to facilitate understanding and predicting facts about situations that have not yet happened. In addition it is also used to simulate what could have happened in the past. Overall, this heuristic has many wide-reaching implications as seen in the studies that took place since Kahneman and Tversky’s first definition of the heuristic in 1981. However, the heuristic can also lead to incorrect decisions and judgments.
Works Cited
Baumeister, Roy F. and Brad J. Bushman. Social Psychology and Human Nature. Belmont, CA: Thomson Learning, 2008
Gilovich, Thomas and Victoria Husted Medvec. The Experience of Regret: What, When and Why? Psychological Review 1995. Volume 102. http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/rev/102/2/379.pdf
Kahneman, Daniel, Paul Slovic, and Amos Tversky. Judgment under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases. New York, NY. Cambridge University Press, 1982
NJ Roese, F Fessel, A Summerville, J Kruger, MA (2006) When Foresight Trumps Hindsight Psychological Science Journal Review.
Trabasso, Tom and Jake Bartolone. Story Understanding and Counterfactual Reasoning. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory and Cognition 2003. http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/xlm/29/5/904.pdf
