Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

When Less Is More: Evolutionary Origins Of The Affect Heuristic, Jerald D. Kralik, Eric R. Xu, Emily J. Knight, Sara A. Khan, William J. Levine

Dartmouth Scholarship

The human mind is built for approximations. When considering the value of a large aggregate of different items, for example, we typically do not summate the many individual values. Instead, we appear to form an immediate impression of the likeability of the option based on the average quality of the full collection, which is easier to evaluate and remember. While useful in many situations, this affect heuristic can lead to apparently irrational decision-making. For example, studies have shown that people are willing to pay more for a small set of high-quality goods than for the same set of high-quality goods …