Part two of this series, “Cognitive Biases, Heuristics, and Fallacies in Municipal Decision-Making,” explored how cognitive biases and heuristics, such as confirmation bias and anchoring, can distort decision-making and impact governance. Recognizing these tendencies is essential for making more objective and informed choices.

Flawed reasoning does not stop with cognitive biases; logical fallacies and inferential heuristics can further complicate decision-making for city managers. This final installment explores common logical pitfalls, such as ad hominem attacks and illegitimate appeals to emotion, while offering actionable strategies to improve reasoning and foster sound decision-making. By adopting these tools, city managers can enhance their leadership, uphold transparency, and guide their communities toward inclusive and effective governance.

Fallacies are a “common and tempting way of reasoning badly” or flaws in reasoning that weaken an argument. ¹ Unlike cognitive biases, which are often unconscious and automatic, fallacies are explicit errors in logic that can be identified and corrected. They typically arise in debates or persuasive contexts, where faulty argumentation can mislead others. “The presence of flawed arguments—fallacies—works as an indicator of misleading information.” ² 

For example, an ad hominem fallacy occurs when someone attacks the person making an argument rather than addressing the argument itself. Another common fallacy is an illegitimate appeal to emotion, where a person attempts to arouse emotions to divert attention from the real issues. ³ In both cases, the fallacies create the illusion of a valid argument while diverting attention from the actual issues.

Ad Hominem: Attacking the Person Instead of the Argument

The argument against the person, or ad hominem fallacy, occurs when an argument attacks an individual’s character, circumstances, or position rather than addressing the issue. This fallacy diverts attention from the main problem and often produces unproductive outcomes. As Southworth and Swoyer note,

One of the most effective ways to shift the focus is to attack the other person in a way that triggers various emotions like anger because when we are angry or otherwise negatively emotionally aroused, it is difficult to remain focused on the real issue. ⁴

Consider a scenario where the city manager deals with a condemned residence in a highly visible location, and the owners refuse to abate the conditions or vacate the property. If city officials, including the city manager or city council, attack the residents personally instead of focusing on the core issue—the public safety concerns surrounding the condemned building—an ad hominem fallacy will emerge.

In this case, the residential property, located along a main traffic corridor, has had repeated nuisance violations over the past few years, requiring the city to intervene after the residents refused to abate the nuisances themselves. Recently, the city building inspector inspected the residential structure and found numerous issues, resulting in the condemnation of the property. Once a property is condemned, the process requires issuing a notice of violation, holding a public hearing, providing an opportunity to correct the issues, and the city repairing or demolishing the structure if the issues are not addressed. The former is almost always the city’s chosen disposition. The owners did not engage in the hearings or abatement process despite this process.

Instead of focusing on the safety risks associated with the condemned building or exploring potential solutions, such as offering relocation assistance, someone may say, “The residents are stubborn and irresponsible. They do not care about their safety or the safety of their neighbors. If they were responsible, we would not have spent thousands of taxpayers’ dollars cleaning up their junk twice yearly. How can someone live in a house without running water, sewer, or electricity? The longer we let them stay, the more problems we will have. We cannot keep catering to people who refuse to follow the rules.”

This statement represents an ad hominem attack by focusing on the residents’ character rather than addressing the actual issue—the unsafe conditions of the property. The residents’ reasons for refusing to vacate, which could include financial hardship, emotional attachment to the home, mental illness such as hoarding, or uncertainty about where to go, are not considered in this attack. The argument undermines meaningful dialogue and problem-solving by focusing on the residents’ perceived personal flaws. Some people like to believe that victims deserve a particular situation they find themselves in,” a consequence of the just world fallacy. ⁵

Such fallacious reasoning could lead the city council to order the structure to be vacated, repaired, or demolished without considering all relevant information, potentially resulting in the owners’ forceful eviction. However, the city manager can intervene by bringing the discussion back to the core issue—the unsafe conditions of the condemned structure—without attacking the residents’ character or motivations. The city manager can acknowledge the residents’ specific circumstances and explore the reasons behind their refusal to leave. This approach shifts the conversation away from labeling the residents stubborn or irresponsible.

Next, the city manager can suggest that he and the city staff bring potential solutions back to the council at their next meeting. Solutions such as offering temporary relocation assistance or working with the department of families and children to help the residents find safe housing would focus on solving the issue with empathy rather than attacking the residents’ character or motivations.

To avoid falling into the ad hominem fallacy in the future, the city manager must ensure that discussions and decisions are based on the facts of the situation rather than on personal attacks or perceived flaws. The city manager can work with city staff to ensure they recognize the ad hominem fallacy, focus on the facts, consider all alternatives, and avoid reducing complex situations to personal criticisms of community members or others involved.

Illegitimate Appeal to Emotion: Manipulating Emotions to Influence Decisions

When a person or group cannot see a way to refute someone else’s view using good arguments, they may exploit people’s emotions—such as anger, pity, or fear—to divert attention from the issue at hand. ⁶ Such was the case in City A, which provides sanitation services to its residents, businesses, and industry. The sanitation department employees and their supervisor proposed a new idea to make trash collection more efficient. They planned to move all trash pickup to the curbside, shifting away from the current system, which uses both alley and curbside collection. The sanitation department presented the city manager data showing that switching to curbside pickup would reduce the miles driven, saving on fuel and vehicle maintenance costs. Additionally, it would eliminate the costly repairs to alleyways damaged by the heavy trash trucks. The savings would extend to reduced person-hours, equipment time, and materials, and overall, the proposal promised to lower costs for the city, potentially reducing the need for future rate increases.

A public forum was held to gather community feedback. However, only about 50 out of 2,000 customers attended, and the responses were overwhelmingly negative. Interestingly, the opposition did not address the proposal’s logical and financial benefits—such as cost savings, increased efficiency, or reduced alley damage. Instead, the objections were based on emotional concerns and exaggerated scenarios.

One person claimed, “You are going to make an elderly lady walk her trash can to the street.” This argument appeals to sympathy and concern for older people. Instead of addressing the benefits of curbside collection, the argument emphasizes an emotional scenario that imagines hardship for vulnerable people. While it is a valid concern to consider accessibility, it ignores that the proposal is intended to improve overall efficiency and reduce costs for the community.

Another worried, “What if it snows? The city guys pile snow up along residential driveways. How is my elderly mother supposed to drag her trash can over a three-foot pile of snow you put there?” This response takes a hypothetical, worst-case scenario about snow to create an emotional argument about the difficulty of using curbside collection. While it raises a legitimate concern, it does not engage with the core proposal’s potential benefits or solutions, like the possibility of snow removal being addressed separately. It is a speculative concern designed to evoke fear or anxiety rather than a logical argument.

Others complained, “Trash cans lined up curbside will make the neighborhood look junky. It looks junky enough now.” Or, “The wind will blow the trash cans all over the place. Who is going to go find my trash can when it disappears?” Some residents even expressed frustration with the department’s past performance, stating, “You guys do not take care of the alleys now, so how do you expect to save money?” Finally, one person declared, “I don’t care if you raise rates; I’m not changing from alley pickup to curbside.”

The opposition experienced at the public forum exemplifies an illegitimate appeal to emotion. In each response, the opposition focuses on emotional triggers—such as concerns for older people, aesthetics, and fear of inconvenience and loss—to dismiss the proposal. These emotional appeals avoid engaging with the logical reasons behind the proposal, such as reduced fuel consumption, lower maintenance costs, and improved efficiency. The focus is on evoking emotional reactions rather than discussing the merits of the proposal itself or its potential benefits. While some concerns raised may be valid, they are presented in a way that appeals to emotions rather than rational arguments.

The illegitimate appeals did not stop when the public forum concluded. They shifted to attention-grabbing misinformation on social media. Misinformation tends to be emotional and grabs the reader’s attention, making it attractive and easy to process, which was the case locally. ⁷ The negativity was compounded as the misinformation was repurposed from one platform to another, making it difficult for users to identify truth claims from misinformation. The proliferation of misinformation aligns with the proposition that “misinformation is more prevalent, influential, and persistent on topics/issues that are controversial and politically charged than neutral or non-divisive ones.” ⁸

Mental Shortcuts and Their Consequences

Inferential heuristics are mental shortcuts or rules of thumb that help people make decisions quickly. These shortcuts are generally helpful and efficient, allowing us to navigate complex decisions without analyzing every detail. While heuristics save time, they can also lead to flawed reasoning through biases or errors in judgment. ⁹ Heuristics can lead to cognitive biases, such as hindsight bias, where people perceive events as being more predictable once they have occurred. ¹⁰ Individuals may confine their attention to only a subset of considerations to expedite decision-making, which can lead them to overlook complexities. ¹¹

Representative Heuristics: Judging by Similarity

A representative heuristic occurs when we conclude that the more like a representative or typical member of a category something is, the more likely it is to be a member of that category. ¹² In city management, a representative heuristic is present when people judge the probability of an event based on how similar it is to a typical case and overlook other relevant information, which is often committed when discussing blight or general nuisances. This heuristic presents itself when people assume that a neighborhood with older homes and a high percentage of residents receiving public assistance is more likely to have problems with crime. In law enforcement, this is known as the broken window theory—a broken window or blighted area sends cues to potential offenders that community residents are not vested in the neighborhood. ¹³

Using representative heuristics can lead to bias about groups that can promote stereotypes, leading to prejudices. For example, during a discussion on blight, a participant said that one man’s trash is another man’s treasure, and another participant in the discussion quickly responded that the blighted area is due to a higher percentage of the residents receiving public assistance—a crude stereotype. The person’s stereotype of people receiving public assistance and the correlation to blighted areas could be the result of the validity effect—the mere repetition of a claim increasing people’s tendency to believe it without giving the topic any thought.

Availability Heuristic: Overweighting Vivid and Recent Events

An availability heuristic occurs when individuals base judgments or make decisions based on the frequency with which examples come to mind. However, the frequency judged by individuals may not align with the actual frequency of events. ¹⁴ Recent experiences or media reports often influence this heuristic, mainly when those events are surprising, salient, or personally relevant. Even if the information is not representative or relevant to the situation, it can still impact decision-making.

Winter Storm Uri is a vivid and memorable event that led some city managers to fall prey to the availability heuristic. From February 12–16, 2021, the storm brought widespread snowfall and damaging ice across the midwest, with temperatures plummeting to their coldest in decades in the south-central United States. The storm severely disrupted natural gas and electric utilities, especially in Kansas. The extreme cold led to a significant surge in natural gas prices—over 20 times higher than previous records, along with production disruptions and challenges in electricity generation, mainly due to ice affecting wind power. One affected area ordered rolling blackouts to protect the grid, leaving many customers without power. ¹⁵

In the aftermath, municipal, cooperative, and investor-owned utilities faced significant financial strain due to record-high natural gas and energy prices, infrastructure repairs, and overtime staffing costs. These utilities, including City A, undertook efforts to reduce the risk of future storm impacts, improve internal and external communication, and alleviate the financial burdens customers experienced due to recovery costs. Decision-makers often use heuristics to cope with complex and uncertain environments, which can lead to inappropriate or suboptimal decisions. ¹⁶ The recovery and mitigation efforts following Winter Storm Uri present such a complex and uncertain environment for decision-making.

The availability heuristic will likely continue influencing decisions made by city managers and utility general managers long after Winter Storm Uri. This heuristic leads individuals to overestimate the likelihood of events based on how easily they come to mind. The widespread media coverage and vivid memories of the storm’s impacts—such as power outages, water supply disruptions, and infrastructure damage—could cause decision-makers to focus disproportionately on these immediate and dramatic consequences. This could lead them to prioritize preparation for winter weather risks, such as ice storms and snow, while downplaying other severe weather threats like tornadoes or thunderstorms, which may seem less immediate or memorable by comparison.

To mitigate the impact of the availability heuristic, city managers can implement strategies that encourage more balanced, data-driven decision-making. These safeguards help counteract the natural tendency to prioritize emotionally vivid events, such as Winter Storm Uri, and ensure a more comprehensive approach to risk management. For example, the midwest is frequently impacted by severe weather events, such as tornadoes, flooding, grassfires, and high winds. 

City managers can create a robust system for continuously collecting data on these risks, ensuring that risk assessments are informed by broader data sets rather than just emotional or recent events. City managers and utility directors can also incorporate historical data and predictive models into their planning processes. Engaging experts, such as meteorologists, engineers, and risk analysts, in decision-making can help ensure that plans are based on diverse expertise rather than memories of a single event.

Conclusion

City/county managers are critical in governance, community building, and decision-making. As their responsibilities grow in scope and complexity, so do the challenges they face in navigating evolving information environments and minimizing the impact of cognitive biases, logical fallacies, and heuristics. The consequences of flawed reasoning can undermine public trust, misallocate resources, and hinder long-term community development. However, managers can mitigate these risks by embracing strategies prioritizing critical thinking, evidence-based decision-making, and transparent communication and fostering resilient, inclusive communities.

The key to success lies in acknowledging the influence of biases and fallacies while committing to continuous learning, self-awareness, and adaptive leadership. City/county managers must address immediate operational needs and build frameworks for collaboration and long-term planning that align with their communities’ diverse values and priorities. In doing so, they reaffirm their role as stewards of the public trust, ensuring that governance remains equitable, effective, and responsive to the needs of all citizens.

Whether managing a community of 5,000 or 500,000, the strategies outlined here can help city and county managers address these universal challenges. By applying these principles, local government professionals can strengthen their leadership, ensure accountability, and provide high-quality community services.

JON QUINDAY, ICMA-CM, is interim city manager of Abilene, Kansas, USA.

Endnotes and Resources

¹ Southworth, J., & Swoyer, C. (2020). Critical reasoning: A user’s Manual, V.4.0. Philosophy Open Educational Resources, 1–669. https://doi.org/10.58809/qgvo1509

² Musi, E., Carmi, E., Reed, C., Yates, S., & O’Halloran, K. (2023). Developing misinformation immunity: How to reason-check fallacious news in a human–computer interaction environment. Social Media + Society, 9 (1). https://doi.org/10.1177/20563051221150407

³ Ibid, note 1.

⁴ Ibid, note 1.

⁵ Moss, S. A., Wilson, S. G., & Davis, J. M. (2016). Which cognitive biases can exacerbate our workload? Australasian Journal of Organisational Psychology, 9. https://doi.org/10.1017/orp.2016.1

⁶ Ibid, note 1.

⁷ Zhou, Y., & Shen, L. (2024). Processing of misinformation as motivational and cognitive biases. Frontiers in Psychology, 15, 1–10. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1430953

⁸ Ibid, note 7.

⁹ Ibid, note 1.

¹⁰ Berthet, V. (2022). The impact of cognitive biases on professionals’ decision-making: A review of four occupational areas. Frontiers in Psychology, 12. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.802439

¹¹ Ibid, note 5.

¹² Ibid, note 1.

¹³ Konkel, R. H., Ratkowski, D., & Tapp, S. N. (2019). The Effects of Physical, Social, and Housing Disorder on Neighborhood Crime: A Contemporary Test of Broken Windows Theory.  ISPRS International Journal of Geo-Information, 8 (12), 583. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijgi8120583

¹⁴ Ibid, note 1.

¹⁵ Mahlberg, P. (2021, May 5). Back to normal?. KMEA. https://kmea.com/back-to-normal/

¹⁶ Ibid, note 10.