Availability heuristic

Notes about availability heuristic

The author tells about one year in Eugene, at the Oregon Research Institute in 1971-72 with, among others, Paul Slovic, a star in choice psychology, who had been in class with Amos. They worked that year, jogging and so on...

One of the projects was to look at "heuristic availability": how to judge a frequency/number (dangerous plant, divorcing people), and to study the ease with which this number comes to mind, the mental path of the patient.

--> 2 systems: one automatic and the other more thoughtful, were not yet discovered and they did not really care about this area, but it should be known that both systems are involved when the subject tries to find/retrieve this number.

A first question is how many cases must be remembered for the number to come to mind. --> e.g. trying to list the number of divorces one knows in one's head.

The answer is 0 --> case letters and country news.

But it is the ease with which we remember an example, the speed with which it comes to mind that will be an important bias in the evaluation of the number.

Ex: Hollywood scandals, we talk about them a lot so we will have the impression that they are more numerous.

Ex: plane crashes.

--> also the personal dimension will make it possible to exaggerate the number.

--> It's very important to be aware of these availability biases that can change our perception of reality.  To fight against our mistakes even if it can be painful.

The funny example is that it can pacify some marriages --> ask for household chores, the sum of the two was always more than 100%. --> good example of how these availability biases can create tension. So we sometimes have the impression that we do more than others, e.g. cleaning our flatmates in Lyon; but you have to understand that others certainly have the same impression.

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At the beginning of the 90s, a group of Germans led by Norbert Schwarz: what is asked of the patient also influences the psychology of availability. --> insurance, 2 questions, less insured if asked a lot of examples.

--> the ease with which you find the examples is a bias on the number of examples found.

--> smiling easier, frowning harder (therefore less confident).

--> paradoxical result: less confident of a position they were asked to produce many arguments to support it. Examples: frequency of bicycle use, evaluation of a course.

--> Can be explained by the fact that the person expects when asked that it might be difficult to continue giving examples between example 6 and example 12. However, it is much more complicated than the brain expects, so it loses confidence completely --> "unexplained unavailability".

--> or more this surprise that undermines confidence if for example we put music on them and tell them that it will make the task more complicated.

--> system 1 (automatic) which has expectations and is very surprised when these expectations don't come true; whereas system 2 can prepare itself to moderate the expectations of S1.

--> People who guide themselves more with S2, who are more vigilant will be less affected by these availability biases. In contrast to people acting more with S1 as in the cases :

- task that requires an effort at the same time.

- good mood, joyful episode of their life at that time.

- have confidence in their instincts

- are depressed

- are (or feel) powerful --> Bush quote on the polls, the more powerful you are, the more you trust your instincts, sometimes at the expense of making the right choice.

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The author concludes with some availability bias to understand and summarize the stated theses:

- 2 planes crash, she prefers to take the train, while the risk has not changed.

- He is not too afraid of indoor pollution because it is not much relayed by the media.

- He watches too many spy movies recently, so he becomes a bit of a conspirator.

- The CEO has had a lot of successes recently, failure doesn't come easily to his mind, which makes him overconfident.