The availability heuristic explains why winning an award makes you more likely to win another award. It explains why we sometimes avoid one thing out of fear and end up doing something else that’s objectively riskier.
How the availability heuristic works
- The more “available” a piece of information is to us, the more important it seems
- Narratives are more memorable than disjointed facts
- Anything that makes something easier to remember increases its impact on us
- Quick heuristics enable us to make rapid decisions without taking the time and mental energy to think through all the details
How the availability heuristic misleads us
- What we end up remembering is influenced by factors such as the following: Our foundational beliefs about the world, our expectations, the emotions a piece of information inspires in us, how many times we’re exposed to it, the source of the information
- There is no real link between how memorable something is and how likely it is to happen. In fact, the opposite is often true
How to overcome the availability heuristic
- Always consider base rates when making judgments about probability
- Focus on trends and patterns
- Take the time to think before making a judgment
- Keep track of information you might need to use in a judgment far off in the future
- Go back and revisit old information
