When a psychologist is discussing a heuristic, he or she is referring to

a) biased information processing strategies.
b) a mental shortcut or rule of thumb.
c) a mental technique to improve memory recall.
d) a mental technique to increase deliberation in our decision making.

B) a mental shortcut or rule of thumb.

Explanation:

Heuristic or also known as the rule of thumb is ascribed to a quick decision-making process without commuting or analyzing all potential factors involved. It is called a short cut method because it would make people make judgments quickly based on their prior experience but it should be noted here that it may lead to cognitive bias.

the correct answer is: (1) affected by gerrymandering; (2) not affected by gerrymandering.

gerrymandering is known as a practice that intends to establish a some kind of political advantage for a particular party or group. to do this district boundaries are manipulated. the new resulting district is named a gerrymandering.

in other words, what gerrymandering does is to draw the boundaries of electoral districts trying to benefit the party who is doing it. sometimes, the party controlling the legislature will redraw it so they can maximize the number of districts they are likely to control.