Availability Bias: When What's Most Available to Our Minds Skews Our Thinking

Welcome back to the TaskMastery Guide to Logic, our series on logical fallacies and cognitive biases! We're helping you think clearly and argue rationally, hopefully leading to more constructive dialogue and understanding between people who fundamentally disagree on big issues.

Today, we're diving into the fascinating (and sometimes frustrating) world of Availability Bias. It's totally natural, you default to what's on your mind. It's why propaganda and advertising work so well! But it's always in your best interest to take a second to slow down and think things through, looking beyond what you just heard in an effort to see the bigger picture. Are your reasoning skills being skewed by what you've heard most recently or most frequently, and are your decisions your own or being driven by outside forces?

The Basics

Availability Bias is a mental shortcut where we rely on information that is most readily available to us when making judgments or decisions. Think of it like this: if you've seen a lot of news stories about shark attacks, you might start to believe that sharks are a bigger threat than they actually are. This is because the vivid and recent memories of shark attacks are easily accessible in your mind, making them seem more common and dangerous. In reality, you're in more danger on the road while driving to the beach, but you are more stressed about the sharks. It impacts your attitude, your mood, and your decisions, and it's completely false.

Examples

1. Fear of Flying: The media often sensationalizes plane crashes, making them seem more common than they actually are. This can lead people to overestimate the risk of flying and develop a fear of flying, even though it's statistically one of the safest forms of transportation. We don't hear on the news how many thousands of flights land safely every day.

2. Lottery Tickets: People are more likely to buy lottery tickets after seeing news stories about big winners. The vivid image of someone winning millions of dollars is more readily available in their minds, making them overestimate the chances of winning. When walking by a lotto kiosk you'll remember the winner, not the 29,999,999 losers.

3. Diet and Health: If you've recently seen a lot of news stories about the dangers of processed foods, you might start to believe that all processed foods are unhealthy. This is because the negative information about processed foods is more readily available in your mind, making it seem like the only information that matters. It's important to investigate the biases of your information sources and always weight the other side of an argument.

4. Career Choices: People are more likely to choose a career based on the experiences of friends and family. This is because those experiences are easily accessible, while information about other career options may not be. We often limit our options to the things we've been frequently exposed to despite knowing that many other options are out there.

5. Political Opinions: People are more likely to believe information that supports their existing political beliefs. This is because they are more likely to seek out and remember information that confirms their biases, while contradicting your own beliefs takes a lot more effort.

   
   

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Potential Negative Consequences

Availability Bias can lead to a number of negative consequences, including:

• Irrational Fears: As we saw with the fear of flying example, availability bias can lead us to develop irrational fears based on limited or biased information. We end up limiting ourselves, missing out on opportunities and experiencing needless stress and tension based on faulty logic.

• Poor Decision-Making: Availability bias can lead us to make poor decisions based on incomplete or inaccurate information, and this manifests itself in working against our own best interests.

• Confirmation Bias: Availability bias can reinforce our existing biases, making it difficult to see things from a different perspective. It feels good to have our beliefs confirmed, and doing so will lead to more confirmation in the future.

• Overestimation of Risk: Availability bias can lead us to overestimate the risk of certain events, such as shark attacks or terrorist attacks. These are bad things that do undoubtedly happen, but the mental energy and stress greatly outweigh the actual risks. And unfortunately, bad news sells. We're surrounding by sensationalized horror stories every day, so it's understandable that we overestimate how bad things truly are.

  
  

Practical Tips to Avoid Availability Bias

So, how can we avoid the trap of availability bias? Here are a few tips:

• Seek out diverse sources of information: Don't just rely on the news or social media for information. Seek out information from a variety of sources, including books, academic journals, and expert opinions, especially sources that contradict what you already believe.

• Consider the base rate: When making decisions, consider the overall probability of an event occurring, rather than just relying on the most readily available examples. The outliers often get reported because of how rare they are, but their being reported makes them seem less rare.

• Be aware of your biases: We all have biases, but being aware of them can help us to counteract their influence. Remember, it isn't just other people with unreasonable biases. We all have them.

• Challenge your assumptions: Don't just accept information at face value. Ask yourself where the information is coming from and whether it's reliable. And read beyond the damn headline! Click bait gets us all worked up, but the title of a story is often the most dramatic part while the body of the story would ease your concerns if you took the time to read it.

  
  

  

  
  

Conclusion

Availability bias is a powerful cognitive distortion that can lead us to make poor decisions and develop irrational fears. By being aware of this bias and taking steps to counteract it, we can make better decisions and develop a more accurate understanding of the world around us.

Remember, the next time you find yourself making a judgment based on readily available information, take a moment to consider whether there might be other factors at play. Sensationalized news stories and clickbait headlines seek to get your attention with fear and drama, but you walk away with that fear and drama readily available to recall when it's decision making time. It's okay to admit that you don't have all the information, and it's always a good idea to seek out more information before making a decision.

Additional Resources:

• Availability Heuristic

• The Availability Heuristic: Why We Overestimate the Obvious

Thank you for reading!

JP.