How do people judge risks: Availability heuristic, affect heuristic, or both?
Pachur, Hertwig and Steinmann compared the availability heuristic with the affect heuristic as explanations of how laypeople judge risks. In two student studies they measured risk perception through frequency judgements, the value of a statistical life and perceived risk, across cancer and a range of other causes of death. Availability from recall, which draws on direct experience of risks within a person's social network, matched the responses best. Affective information mattered more for the value of a statistical life and perceived risk than for frequency judgements, and media exposure played a minor role. The results also suggested that the two heuristics may operate together, either in sequence or as a combined composite.
Pachur, Hertwig and Steinmann compared the availability heuristic with the affect heuristic as explanations of how laypeople judge risks. In two student studies they measured risk perception through frequency judgements, the value of a statistical life and perceived risk, across cancer and a range of other causes of death. Availability from recall, which draws on direct experience of risks within a person's social network, matched the responses best. Affective information mattered more for the value of a statistical life and perceived risk than for frequency judgements, and media exposure played a minor role. The results also suggested that the two heuristics may operate together, either in sequence or as a combined composite.
Written from the abstract, Technical University of Munich publication record.
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Pachur, T., Hertwig, R., & Steinmann, F. (2012). How do people judge risks: Availability heuristic, affect heuristic, or both? Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, 18(3), 314-330. doi:10.1037/a0028279