Page 154 - The Social Animal

136 The Social Animal

Let’s look at three of the most common judgmental heuristics—the
representative heuristic, the availability heuristic, and the attitude
heuristic.

The Representative Heuristic According to Daniel Kahne-
32
man and Amos Tversky, when we use the representative heuristic,
we focus on the similarity of one object to another to infer that the
first object acts like the second one. For example, we know that high-
quality products are expensive; therefore, if something is expensive,
we might infer that it is really good.Thus, if I see two bottles of wine
on the shelf and one has a higher price, I leap to the conclusion that
the more expensive one is the better wine. I select the one feature
(price) from among the many others that I might have focused on—
such as type of grape, vintner, vintage, wine-growing region—and I
use that to make my decision. But, as most smart consumers know,
high price does not always mean high quality. Let’s look in more de-
tail at the implications of the use of the representative heuristic by
eavesdropping on a conversation between mother and child in the
aisle of a local supermarket.
Picture the scene: Seven-year-old Rachel spots her favorite ce-
real, Lucky Charms, takes a box off the shelf, and quietly delivers it
to the shopping cart. Her mom looks at the box in disgust. It is bright
red. A leprechaun is sprinkling shining stars (must be sugar) over
pink and purple marshmallow bits. On the back of the box, her mom
finds a message informing her that a special, enclosed pair of glasses
can be used to find hidden leprechauns.
Mom sternly announces, “Rachel, put that junk back on the
shelf. It is loaded with sugar and nothing but empty calories.”
Rachel replies, “But Mom, it tastes good.”
Being a smart mom, she offers Rachel another choice and a lit-
tle inducement.“Why not try this one? It’s called 100% Natural Gra-
nola. It is good for you. Eat this and you’ll grow up to be a big girl.”
Rachel looks at the box. It is small but heavy. The picture on the
front features a bowl of light brown cereal set against a wood-grain
background and a couple of stalks of unprocessed grains. On the
back of the box is a lot of small, hard-to-read writing.
Rachel exclaims, “Yukko! I don’t want to be a big girl.”
How would you resolve the great breakfast cereal standoff?
Would you side with the mother and opt for nutrition, even though