{
  "id": 14975533,
  "title": "Many people judge candidates and policies by a single deciding feature, new research suggests",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/10/16/many-people-judge-candidates-and-policies-by-a-single-deciding",
  "topic": "health",
  "section": "Health & Medicine",
  "published": "2026-10-16T14:00:55.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "PsyPost",
    "slug": "psypost",
    "url": "https://www.psypost.org/many-people-judge-candidates-and-policies-by-a-single-deciding-feature-new-research-suggests/"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "New research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) suggests that when individuals make complex political decisions, they often rely on simple mental shortcuts rather than thoroughly weighing all available information. The study's authors, Nidhi V. Banavar and Kirk Bansak from the University of California, Berkeley, created a mathematical framework to classify various decision strategies based on participants' survey selections. They found that the most common method used was a single-attribute rule, followed by more complex rational and tally strategies, and least common was random guessing.",
  "summary": "Many survey methods assume people weigh every feature of a candidate or policy. New research suggests most don’t: mental shortcuts dominated, and the strategy people used often shifted from one issue to the next.",
  "key_points": [],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 1,
    "also_reported_by": []
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}