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reasoning
You mistake the ease of recalling a reason for the validity of that reason.
The availability heuristic leads you to treat information that is easier to remember as more important or frequent.
In studies of risk assessment, participants consistently overestimated the likelihood of dramatic events like airplane crashes over common causes of death because those events are more memorable. Your brain values vividness over statistical reality.
The events that occupy your thoughts the most are not necessarily the most likely.
Where this comes from
- Study
- Tversky and Kahneman, 1973, Cognitive Psychology
- What the check found
- The definition provided is the canonical description from Tversky and Kahneman's 1973 paper. The example provided is an accurate application of the concept found throughout the literature.
- Confidence
- Well replicated
Related
One of these every day, and every one names the study it came from. When a finding is contested, it says so.