Answer :
Final answer:
A greater reliance on heuristics may lead older problem solvers to make errors. Heuristics are mental shortcuts that enable quick decision-making but can lead to biases like anchoring bias and availability heuristic. Expertise can sometimes lead to intuitive but unchallenged responses, which can be mitigated by more effortful thinking procedures.
Explanation:
A greater reliance on heuristics may lead older problem solvers to make errors when approaching familiar problems. The term 'heuristic' refers to a mental shortcut that allows people to solve problems and make judgments quickly and efficiently. These rule-of-thumb strategies shorten decision-making time and allow people to function without constantly stopping to think about their next course of action. While heuristics are incredibly useful, they can also lead to errors in judgment, especially when facing a familiar problem where the context might have changed or when new information should be considered.
Cognitive psychology informs us that humans have a natural tendency to use these mental shortcuts. However, heuristics can lead to faulty reasoning, such as anchoring bias or availability heuristic, where we may overrely on readily available information or the first piece of information presented when making decisions. This overreliance can particularly affect older individuals, possibly because they have more experiences reinforcing their heuristics, leading to more pronounced biases in certain situations.
Experts, who have developed deep knowledge in their field, often have an initial sense of the correct answer to a problem but may need to challenge their own assumptions with a detailed analysis. Kahneman suggests that even experts can benefit from procedures that encourage more careful and effortful thinking to avoid casually endorsing intuitive responses without sufficient checking.
