Mind & Psychology October 5, 2025 1 min read

Availability Heuristic: What You See is All There Is

T
Tversky & Kahneman Contributor

Media Distortion

The news reports on rare, dramatic events (terrorism, shark attacks). It ignores common, boring dangers (diabetes, heart disease). Because dramatic events are “available” in our memory, we vastly overestimate their likelihood. Our mental map of risk is not based on statistics; it is based on storytelling.

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