{"id":8129,"date":"2019-05-22T16:04:20","date_gmt":"2019-05-22T16:04:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lancaster.ac.uk\/fas\/psych\/glossary\/heuristic\/"},"modified":"2019-05-22T16:04:20","modified_gmt":"2019-05-22T16:04:20","slug":"heuristic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lancaster.ac.uk\/fas\/psych\/glossary\/heuristic\/","title":{"rendered":"Heuristic"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A rule-of-thumb procedure or trial-and-error problem-solving process for making a decision or forming a judgment, without resorting to an algorithm or formal reasoning. &nbsp;The use of analogies or metaphors can be part of such a process. While its aim is to reduce the time taken to arrive at a solution, it does not guarantee the best one, or even any solution at all. &nbsp;First suggested as an exploratory approach to decision making by <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nobelprize.org\/nobel_prizes\/economics\/laureates\/1978\/simon-autobio.html\" target=\"_self\" data-editable-link=\"http:\/\/www.nobelprize.org\/nobel_prizes\/economics\/laureates\/1978\/simon-autobio.html&amp;target=_self\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Herbert A. Simon <\/a>(1916-2001), it has become a firmly established topic of research in cognitive science and psychology, under the heading of &#8216;cognitive heuristics&#8217;. Means-end analysis is one example of a cognitive heuristic and as such relevant to the study of cognitive development.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>See <a href=\"analogy_-as_a_trope-\">Analogy (as a trope)<\/a>, <a href=\"causality_-as_a_psychological_phenomenon-\">Causality (as a psychological phenomenon)<\/a>, <a href=\"cognitive_science\">Cognitive science<\/a>, <a href=\"creativity\">Creativity<\/a>, <a href=\"delphi_method\">Delphi method<\/a>, <a href=\"metaphor\">Metaphor<\/a>, <a href=\"problem_solving\">Problem solving<\/a>, <a href=\"trial-and-error_learning\">Trial-and-error learning<\/a><\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<p><\/body><\/html><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A rule-of-thumb procedure or trial-and-error problem-solving process for making a decision or forming a judgment, without resorting to an algorithm or formal reasoning. &nbsp;The use of analogies or metaphors can be part of such a process. While its aim is to reduce the time taken to arrive at a solution, it does not guarantee the &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.lancaster.ac.uk\/fas\/psych\/glossary\/heuristic\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Heuristic&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2],"class_list":["post-8129","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-glossary","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lancaster.ac.uk\/fas\/psych\/glossary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8129","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lancaster.ac.uk\/fas\/psych\/glossary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lancaster.ac.uk\/fas\/psych\/glossary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lancaster.ac.uk\/fas\/psych\/glossary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lancaster.ac.uk\/fas\/psych\/glossary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8129"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lancaster.ac.uk\/fas\/psych\/glossary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8129\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lancaster.ac.uk\/fas\/psych\/glossary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8129"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lancaster.ac.uk\/fas\/psych\/glossary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8129"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lancaster.ac.uk\/fas\/psych\/glossary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8129"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}