← all facts
decision making
You rate common risks as rarer than they are.
The availability heuristic leads you to judge probability based on memory, not data.
You estimate the frequency of an event by how easily examples come to mind. If the news covers a dramatic event, you remember it vividly and assume it is more common than boring, high-probability risks. This causes you to misjudge real-world dangers.
Your fears are shaped by your memory, not facts.
Where this comes from
- Study
- Tversky and Kahneman, 1973
- What the check found
- The 1973 paper 'Availability: A heuristic for judging frequency and probability' by Tversky and Kahneman is a seminal text that formally established this concept.
- Confidence
- Solid, with limits
Related
One of these every day, and every one names the study it came from. When a finding is contested, it says so.