Availability: A heuristic for judging frequency and probability
Tversky and Kahneman describe a judgemental heuristic in which people estimate how frequent a class is, or how probable an event is, by the ease with which instances come to mind. Availability generally tracks real frequency, but it is also affected by other factors, so relying on it produces systematic biases. The authors demonstrate those biases in judgements of the frequency of word classes, of combinatorial outcomes and of repeated events. They explain illusory correlation as an availability bias, and they discuss how the availability of incidents and scenarios shapes subjective probability.
Tversky and Kahneman describe a judgemental heuristic in which people estimate how frequent a class is, or how probable an event is, by the ease with which instances come to mind. Availability generally tracks real frequency, but it is also affected by other factors, so relying on it produces systematic biases. The authors demonstrate those biases in judgements of the frequency of word classes, of combinatorial outcomes and of repeated events. They explain illusory correlation as an availability bias, and they discuss how the availability of incidents and scenarios shapes subjective probability.
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Tversky, A., & Kahneman, D. (1973). Availability: A heuristic for judging frequency and probability. Cognitive Psychology, 5(2), 207-232. doi:10.1016/0010-0285(73)90033-9