The Availability Heuristic Concept.
Availability Heuristic is a reasoning shortcut that involves judging the frequency or likelihood of something by how easy it is to think of examples. Thus, something that comes easily to mind is judged as being more likely than something which requires some effort to bring to mind. This heuristic has been studied in various different contexts with particular attention given to estimating frequencies of events related to natural hazards.
How does this work?
Let’s say you are thinking of places where you have seen examples for red cars. The first place that pops up in your mind will be where you saw the most number of red cars. You assume that this location must have the highest ratio of red cars compared to other locations because it was the easiest place where you saw them – since it was the first place that you thought of.
The availability heuristic is often applied when individuals are asked to estimate whether there are more English words that begin with a particular letter (e.g., « k ») or have particular phonemes (sounds). For example, people will overestimate how many words in English start with the sound « k » because it’s relatively easy to name examples (« kayak », « kick », etc.) This cognitive bias occurs because people think that since they can easily think of examples, this category must be more popular than it actually is.
This bias is very important for marketers. They know that thinking an ad was found after just five seconds of search means that it better be good! It feels like that was the most searched for ad which means it is probably the best one. They know that when something comes to your mind immediately, you are more likely to buy it.
Why do people use this bias?
Availability heuristic works because we don’t have time and resources to check all possible measurements. So we take short cuts in our thinking process by just checking the first instance of an event that comes into our minds and then infer from there. If imagine flying a plane, you should remember how many planes crashed every day but if someone asked you how many planes crash every year, obviously not so many come to your mind so we assume the risk must be lower than daily accidents. The Availability Heuristic makes us rely on easily recalled examples and judge this as the majority of cases.
How to avoid it?
There is no sure way but training, meditating and thinking can help one think about many different views to a situation and not just the first thing that comes to mind. You could also try writing down all your thoughts or exercising your brain by trying new activities instead of sticking with old hobbies.
Some examples of Availability Heuristic:
-People underestimate chances for rare events but overestimate chance for common events (like plane crashes) after media coverage because we remember only the most recent ones. We don’t know how frequent they usually are.
-People tend to be more afraid of sharks than mosquitos which results in over 40 times more deaths per year by these little insects than by sharks. This is because we see more of those around us and can’t imagine how dangerous they could be.
-People think that their country is the best country in the world to live even though they know there are other countries which might be better for them personally (jobs, weather, etc.) because as soon as they think about moving somewhere else, they say: « Oh but what will we do there? It’s so different from our own culture ».
-Pokemon Go! Everyone who has played this game knows you start thinking about catching Pokemon throughout your day and after a while you find yourself looking up at trees and buildings constantly and not paying attention to where you’re. Now it happened, I’m not saying it’s the Availability Heuristic but after an episode of mass hysteria due to our brain thinking about Pokemon all day, obviously nothing will come up in your mind when you think « what might happen if I’ll look up right now ». It definitely doesn’t have anything to do with that.
-« What is the percentage of African American people who are arrested? » When asked this question, most people overestimate since they can easily think about examples where African Americans were arrested. This doesn’t mean that the rate of arrests among African Americans is greater than any other ethnicity.
Which profession use the Availability Heuristic bias?
People in a variety of professions tend to use the Availability Heuristic, though it’s important to note that this is not exclusive to these professions. Lawyers and judges use this heuristic when they’re deciding whether or not someone should go to jail for breaking into a home – if it happened more often then they might be inclined to think that people who break into homes deserve longer prison sentences. When trying out new drugs, doctors rely on their own experience (heuristics) about how effective the drug is rather than carrying out an experiment like clinical trials. Finally, politicians try and convince voters of their side by talking about what has already happened or pointing towards something similar which has recently occurred.
Availability Heuristic Conclusion.
The Availability Heuristic states that if something is easy to recall, we’re more likely to use it as a reference. We use the first thing that pops into our minds without thinking about how representative or accurate that example might be. By understanding this cognitive bias, you can avoid falling victim to it and make better, more objective decisions.
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