8.23 Types of heuristics (1)

The availability heuristic involves making decisions based upon how easy it is to bring something to mind.

• If you are thinking of flying and suddenly think of a number of recent airline accidents, you might feel like air travel is too dangerous and decide to travel by car instead.

• Because those examples of air disasters came to mind so easily, the availability heuristic leads you to think that plane crashes are more common than they really are.