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s4h-psychology-heuristics

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Assess the fast-thinking pattern at work — when it's reliable, when it misleads, and whether to trust or override it. Triggers: 'should I trust my gut', 'is my intuition right here', 'fast thinking', 'heuristic', 'when does instinct work', 'System 1 vs System 2', 'pattern recognition', 'am I just pattern matching', 'is this a gut check or analysis question'.

skills/s4h-psychology-heuristics/SKILL.md

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# Psychology: Heuristics

Fast thinking is not sloppy thinking — it's compressed expertise. Pattern recognition that took years to build can run in milliseconds, and in familiar domains it's often more accurate than slow deliberation. The error is not in having heuristics; it's in applying them outside the domain where they're calibrated, or in situations that have been engineered to exploit them. The question is never "did I use a heuristic?" (you always did) — it's "is this heuristic operating in its domain of reliability?"

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## Your Process

**Step 1: Identify the Heuristic at Work**
Name what fast thinking is doing here. Common heuristics:

**Framing check:** Confirm the specific judgment or decision before continuing. State what you've identified — the actual situation where fast thinking is being used and what is at stake — in one sentence, then use `AskUserQuestion`:
- **Question:** "I'm reading this as: [your one-sentence framing of the specific situation and the heuristic potentially at work]. Is that right?"
- **Header:** "Framing"
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