Part I
Please identify and thoroughly describe an important decision that you made in your life in which you used one (or more) of the 10 heuristics that Gigerenzer lists in Table 2 of the above-cited article. Regarding this decision, please specifically describe your decision-making process, including the reasons that you did not use a full listing of the pros and cons (with weighted premises) as your decision-making strategy. In particular, please identify the specific heuristic(s) that you used and describe the reasons that you chose to use it (or them). In addition, please reflect on your decision and thoroughly explain whether you would have likely made a better decision had you used a different decision-making strategy. Please also explain whether you would change your decision-making strategy today if you were presented with a similar issue and, if so, what decision-making strategy you would instead use.
Part II
Please summarize your most important critical thinking insights from having thought in Part I about how heuristics relate to your own decision-making. The Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary defines an insight as "the power or act of seeing into a situation.” An insight would include something new that you learned from having peered into how heuristics relate to your own decision-making. A true insight is not the mere quotation of a platitude such as "Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me.” The use of a cliché, which is often an oversimplified insight of another, often blurs a writer's vision before he or she has looked deeply enough to discover and thoroughly examine a genuine and personal insight. A major focus of Part II should be for you to discuss whether one’s regular use of these 10 heuristics in his or her decision-making is consistent with each of the six Attributes of a Critical Thinker (being open-minded, seeking truth, articulating relevant premises, being thorough, using logic and reason, and communicating effectively).