Attribute substitution

What is attribute substitution?

Attribute substitution means answering a difficult question by judging something easier. The substitute may be related to the question, but it is not quite what you were asked.

How it works

Kahneman and Frederick (2002) proposed this account of several judgment heuristics. For example, judging how much someone resembles a typical group member can stand in for judging the probability that they belong to the group. Base rates can make those answers differ.

In a job interview, a manager might answer “How competent is this candidate?” by judging how agreeable the conversation felt. That would be substitution. To establish that it happened in a real hiring decision, you would need evidence about what the manager was judging.

When the easier question takes over

Kahneman and Frederick’s account highlights three features:

• the requested judgment is hard to retrieve or construct;
• an associated impression comes to mind readily;
• and the person accepts that impression without checking the substitution.

These describe the proposed route from a difficult question to an easier answer.

In the interview example, competence is hard to establish in a short conversation. Conversational ease is available immediately. The error comes when “we got along well” is accepted as an answer to “can this person do the work?” Asking what evidence actually bears on job performance exposes the gap between the two judgments.

Why it matters

Ask whether the easy impression answers the actual question. Deliberation, expertise, and a different presentation of the information can affect whether an intuitive answer is accepted or corrected. Attribute substitution is an explanation for some judgments, rather than a single cause behind every thinking error.