8.4: The Availability Heuristic

A heuristic is a general problem-solving framework (Tversky & Kahneman, 1974). You can think of these as mental shortcuts that are used to solve problems. Different types of heuristics are used in different types of situations, and the impulse to use a heuristic occurs when one of five conditions is met (Pratkanis, 1989):

• When one is faced with too much information
• When the time to make a decision is limited
• When the decision to be made is unimportant
• When there is access to very little information to use in making the decision
• When an appropriate heuristic happens to come to mind in the same moment

Availability Heuristic

The availability heuristic is a heuristic in which you make a decision based on an example, information, or recent experience that is that readily available to you, even though it may not be the best example to inform your decision. Biases tend to “preserve that which is already established—to maintain our preexisting knowledge, beliefs, attitudes, and hypotheses” (Aronson, 1995; Kahneman, 2011).

This text is adapted from OpenStax, Psychology. OpenStax CNX.

In response to a question, like “Which job is more damaging to one’s health: being a gas plant operator or dentist?”, someone may intuitively generate thoughts that lead to a seemingly automatic and quick judgment.

After all, in the latest news, they’ve observed related events, vividly repeated over and over again.

As a result, the episodes may just be more memorable—the dramatic instances are more easily retrievable and available.

In this case, the person uses the availability heuristic—the process whereby judgments of frequency or probability are based on how relevant instances come to mind with ease.

Unfortunately, their response is distorted, as dentists are more likely to be exposed to deadly diseases, infections, radiation, and prolonged sitting according to compiled data.

While the availability heuristic can speed up decisions that may sometimes be accurate, be aware that such quick conclusions can also lead to incorrect reflections and overestimated contributions within the real world.