Talk:Contagion heuristic

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is a comment, hope it's in the right place.

Elsewhere in Wikipedia, "heuristic" is defined as a rule of thumb for problem-solving, which CAN lead to a cognitive bias. But this page (contagion heurisic) seems to describe a cognitive bias, not a heuristic as defined above...

The heuristic article differentiates heuristics as used in psychology, where they are decision-making strategies that can lead to cognitive bias. Of course, the article needs some work otherwise--I'll see if I can make it clearer. Starryharlequin 06:22, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

I was going to say the same thing. A heuristic is a problem solving strategy, nothing to do with a bias, although certain heuristics may have biased outcomes as a result of their strategy. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 203.161.81.90 (talk) 06:56, August 23, 2007 (UTC)

Indeed. I just deleted the offending definition. --Ben Kovitz 22:43, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Removing evaluative/speculative essay

This version of the article is mostly an essay lamenting the existence of the contagion heuristic, and offering some speculations about it. It also doesn't explain what the contagion heuristic is.

I've done a small amount of reading about this, and I haven't found anything to suggest that "contagion heuristic" refers to group-think. (Such writing might be out there; I just haven't found it.) So, for now, I'm removing nearly all of the essay and replacing it with a brief summary of what I found in Heuristics and Biases by Daniel Kahneman.

No doubt I'm deleting some good info. I hope someone will add back the supported info without reintroducing the evaluative writing. If you restore the equation of contagion heuristic with groupthink, please post a note about the source. That equation of terms sounds to me like a likely misinterpretation, but I could be wrong.

--Ben Kovitz 23:22, 27 September 2007 (UTC)