The possession heuristic

Abstract

A heuristic, as Daniel Kahneman (2011: 98) observes, “is a simple procedure that helps find adequate, though often imperfect, answers to difficult questions.” Kahneman is a psychologist, one of a handful of scholars who have brought heuristics to the attention of a general audience, thanks in large part to several books (Kahneman, Slovic, and Tversky 1982; Gilovich, Driffin, and Kahneman 2002). Just as Thomas Kuhn’s 1962 ideas about paradigms in the history of science are fodder for academics in all sorts of fields (this for better or worse), so too for Kahneman and company’s ideas about heuristics, and legal academics are among the wide audience of consumers. Witness a host of articles and several books, including the recently published Heuristics and the Law (Gigerenzer and Engel 2006; see also, e.g., Chapter 5; Sunstein 2000; Kelman 2011).

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