Saturday, May 31, 2014

12 - Chapter 12: The Science of Availability

Chapter 12: The Science of Availability


  • the availability heuristic — used to estimate the frequency of a category — e.g. people who diroce after age 60 —how easily instances come to mind, availability
  • both S1 and S2 are involved
  • not necessary to hv instances — e.g. XUZONLCJM TAPCERHOB, see easily 2nd set can construct more words
  • substitutes one q. for another à systematic errors — many things can make instances easy to think of other than frequency — e.g. attention-grabbing instances, political sex scandals — dramatic events, personal exper’s, pictures, vivid examples
  • avoiding these biases is effortful

The Psychology of Availability

  • fluent retrieval of instances more impt than no. of instances — e.g. when asked to produce more argu’ts for a choice, less confident in it ß feeling of having trouble finding instances, exper. diminishing fluency
  • critical is that the unavail. is unexplained — when given an expl’n (e.g. backgrd music is making retrieval more difficult), fluency heuristic is not used as a measure —
  • difficulty (usu. betw. 6 & 12 instances) comes as surprise — S1 sets expect’ns, perceives surprises
  • when engaged S2 can override the avail. heuristic, take focus off no. of instances, onto content
  • most susceptible to avail. bias when
    • also engaged in another effortful task
    • in good mood
    • knowledgeable novices on the topic of task (vs. true experts)
    • much faith in intuition
    • feeling powerful

Speaking of Availability


  • “Because of the coincidence of two planes crashing last month, she now prefers to take the train. That’s silly. The risk hasn’t really changed; it is an availability bias.”
  • “He underestimates the risks of indoor pollution because there are few media stories on them. That’s an availability effect. He should look at the statistics.”
  • “She has been watching too many spy movies recently, so she’s seeing conspiracies everywhere.”
  • “The CEO has had several successes in a row, so failure doesn’t come easily to her mind. The availability bias is making her overconfident.”

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