Availability Heuristic
We judge how common something is based on how easily examples come to mind.
The availability heuristic was described by Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman in the 1970s. When we try to estimate the likelihood of an event, the brain searches for examples. The more easily an example pops up, the more common we believe the event to be. The problem is that memory is not an objective statistical source—dramatic, recent, or emotionally charged events are stored more vividly than mundane ones. Consequently, we overestimate the risk of the spectacular and underestimate the routine.
After watching a news story about a plane crash, flying feels dangerous, even though driving is statistically far more dangerous per kilometer. Car accidents are so common that they rarely make the news, so they take up less space in our memory.
It explains why media coverage shapes our worldview—often in the opposite direction of actual statistics.
The next time you feel like "this kind of thing happens all the time"—count how many actual cases you can name from the past twelve months.
Things that are easy to recall seem more common than they really are.
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