Elsevier

Cognitive Psychology

Volume 5, Issue 2, September 1973, Pages 207-232
Cognitive Psychology

Availability: A heuristic for judging frequency and probability,☆☆

https://doi.org/10.1016/0010-0285(73)90033-9Get rights and content

Abstract

This paper explores a judgmental heuristic in which a person evaluates the frequency of classes or the probability of events by availability, i.e., by the ease with which relevant instances come to mind. In general, availability is correlated with ecological frequency, but it is also affected by other factors. Consequently, the reliance on the availability heuristic leads to systematic biases. Such biases are demonstrated in the judged frequency of classes of words, of combinatorial outcomes, and of repeated events. The phenomenon of illusory correlation is explained as an availability bias. The effects of the availability of incidents and scenarios on subjective probability are discussed.

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    Address: Department of Psychology, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel.

    ☆☆

    This work was supported by NSF grant GB-6782, by a grant from the Central Research Fund of the Hebrew University, by grant MH 12972 from the National Institute of Mental Health and Grants 5 S01 RR 05612-03 and RR 05612-04 from the National Institute of Health to the Oregon Research Institute.

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