Salience heuristics, not logical weight, routinely drive human judgment.

Evidence

On the psychological side, the classical agenda setting effect may be a particular manifestation of a general inclination in human inference—an inclination to overvalue “salient” evidence. Extensive experimental research indicates that under diverse settings, the judgments people make are swayed inordinately by evidence that is incidentally salient. Conspicuous evidence is generally accorded importance exceeding its inferential value; logically consequential but perceptually innocuous evidence is accorded less (for reviews of this research, see Taylor & Fiske, 1978; Nisbett & Ross, 1980). — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 1498

Categorization

• XREF: Overvaluing salient evidence is the availability/salience heuristic, which recurs across Tversky-Kahneman work the reader continually encounters. — connects to: Human judgment errors are systematic and shared, not random noise; Decision weights distort even subjectively assessed, vague probabilities — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 2495; Systematic judgment errors do not make people unintelligent. — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology: Key Readings, 2524 (+2 more)

Broader Connections

• Human judgment errors are systematic and shared, not random noise #corroborates (0.85)
• Systematic judgment errors do not make people unintelligent. #corroborates (0.75) — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 2524
• Decision weights distort even subjectively assessed, vague probabilities #corroborates (0.72) — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 2495