Psychology / Unit 7 Psych 0783 short lesson, about 20 seconds
The Availability Heuristic
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The idea
The availability heuristic judges the likelihood of an event by how easily examples of it come to mind.
In practice
People overestimate the risk of rare and heavily reported events and underestimate common quiet ones.
Where people slip
Availability tracks memorability, not frequency. Coverage and vividness both distort it.
Your place on the trail
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Builds on
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