Barry Schwartz

NOVELIST AND EXISTENTIALIST PHILOSOPHER ALBERT CAMUS POSED the question, “Should I kill myself, or have a cup of coffee?” His point was that everything in life is choice. Every second of every day, we are choosing, and there are always alternatives.

Kahneman and Tversky discovered and reported on people’s tendency to give undue weight to some types of information in contrast to others. They called it the availability heuristic. This needs a little explaining. A heuristic is a rule of thumb, a mental shortcut.

Anchoring is why department stores seem to have some of their merchandise on sale most of the time, to give the impression that customers are getting a bargain. The original ticket price becomes an anchor against which the sale price is compared.