Heuristic (psychology)

A heuristic is like a shortcut that our brain uses to help us make decisions quickly. Imagine you are playing a video game and you need to decide which way to go. Instead of stopping and thinking about all the different paths and which one might be the best, your brain quickly uses a simple rule to make the decision. It might say "always go left" or "follow the path with the most trees". This simple rule is a heuristic.

Heuristics are really helpful because they save us time and energy. Instead of thinking too much and getting overwhelmed with all the possibilities, our brain can make a quick decision based on a simple rule we have learned.

Now, sometimes these heuristics can lead us to make mistakes. That's because they are based on general rules, and not every situation is the same. For example, if our rule is "always go left" and there's actually a big obstacle to the left, then following that rule would be a mistake. But still, most of the time heuristics work pretty well and help us make good decisions most of the time.

We use heuristics in our everyday life too. When someone asks you how the food tastes at a restaurant, you might say "it's good" without thinking too much. This is a heuristic because you're using a simple rule like "food at this restaurant is usually good".

So, heuristics are like quick and easy shortcuts that help our brain make decisions without thinking too much. They work most of the time, but sometimes they can lead to mistakes.