Applications of Heuristics and Biases to Social Issues

Validating the existence of heuristic influence on decision making and in real-world applications would create a powerful tool for understanding, predicting, and perhaps even correcting decisions made under situations of uncertainty.
Applications of Heuristics and Biases to Social Issues thoroughly examines these social psychological constructs and explores their importance in the areas of health, law, education, and organizations. Adopting a cross-disciplinary approach to the study of various theories, contributions apply heuristics and biases to such key issues as genetic testing, the controversy over supplying clean needles to drug users to prevent the spread of AIDS, medical decisions by both doctors and patients, therapists' perceptions of diagnostic accuracy, judges' sentencing decisions, perceptions of tax audits, workers' perceptions of jobs and leadership, and the views of the public and policymakers on affirmative action. Other chapters describe the development of heuristic reasoning among elementary school children, examine the effect of heuristics on decisions about environmental issues across childhood, and outline a heuristic framework for college-choice decisions.
This book will be valuable for practitioners in the social problems field, basic and applied social scientists, and for students in such courses as applied psychology and social cognition.