One of the concepts talked about in the text is the idea of heuristics, or shortcuts, that our brains use to make sense of everyday life. Heuristics are the brain's was of conserving energy and simplifying a matter without taking the time and energy to contemplate a certain problem. The example the book uses is the San Diego-Reno question. Because the vast majority of California is west of Reno, Nevada, our brain uses a heuristic to assume that San Diego is west of Reno, when in reality, Reno is farther west than some of southern California, including San Diego. I find this idea a fascinating part of psychological studies and, it is important because our brains can often mislead us into thinking something that isn't actually true, as is the case with the San Diego-Reno example. It is important to train our brains to know when a heuristic is helping us simplify a problem, or if it is misguiding our thinking in a certain way. I can apply this concept to my life when I meet a new person. I, and presumably everyone else, instinctively judge a person based off of their physical, personal, and social traits, and place them in a category solely off of this experience. For example, if I meet a kid wearing a sports jersey, my representative heuristic makes me assume that this person enjoys sports, when in reality they may dislike sports but are wearing the jersey for another reason. This is the idea of heuristics at work, and it is essential to not become too invested in certain heuristics as they may misguide us.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KOzAxhu6w2s
This is a link that talks about a type of availability heuristic(our perceived chance of something happening) in which it is assumed that increased road rage will lead to increased accidents when in reality accidents aren't increasing.
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