Cognitive mechanisms and individual strategies: inferences and heuristics

Operation of mental schemes include schemes for gathering information, comparing and evaluating (assessing) the value and reliability, integration and formulation (by inference) of social judgments. In all these steps can occur distortion. At the level of knowledge everyday, people tend to operate with accessible examples, and not statistical data. Generally, distortions are not deliberately applied, but spontaneously, unconsciously. The phenomenon whereby, in social cognition, people believe in a strong link between certain characteristics, was called correlational illusion or illusory correlation. And in the activity of knowledge, most people follow the law of minimum effort. They use various heuristic strategies to obtain information that is both: 1) as simple and easy to perform; 2) the greatest possible accuracy and precision over time. The study aims to identify the main heuristic strategies used in social cognition, their mode of operation, repertorying distortions that may interfere with the mental schemes that lead to the formulation of social judgment.mental schema, inference, heuristic strategies, distortion