ABSTRACT
The dual-processing theory of cognitive processing states that there are two distinct ways in which we make decisions in daily life. Type 1 cognitive processing is fast but can be erroneous, whereas type 2 processing is slow and often is more accurate than type 1 processing. At least that is the most commonly held view (Tversky and Kahneman 1983; Samuelson and Church 2014; Roberts and West 2015). As we will see, this commonly held view is not quite accurate. Which of the two types of processing is most accurate depends on your background information and the task you are asked to complete. For example, if you know very little about American cities, deciding the population size of a city based on name recognition can yield rather accurate results. In fact, studies have shown that when Germans were asked to determine whether the population size was greater in Milwaukee or Detroit, most said “Detroit,” which is the correct answer (Gigerenzer 2007). When Americans were asked the same question, they made more mistakes because they were unable to rely on name recognition. Why does the name recognition heuristic work for Germans but not Americans? The main reason is that if you barely know anything about two American cities, it is likely that the city you have heard about has a larger population of the two. Of course, there are a myriad of counterexamples to this heuristic, or rule of thumb, which is why it is heuristic, but the heuristic yields more accurate results than mere guesswork in circumstances like these.
