The availability heuristic causes people to assess probabilities not like statisticians but by how easily they can recall an example; this explains why people wrongly believe homicides exceed suicides and accidents exceed diseases as causes of death, when the reverse is true, because homicides and accidents are more salient/available.

causalpending

Speaker

Cass Sunstein

Evidence Quote

when people are assessing probabilities they we don't work as statisticians they think can I think of an example in which the event came to fruition and if you can think of an easy example than the probability judgment will be driven up accordingly

Source

Cass Sunstein on Worst-case Scenarios 11/19/2007EconTalk
Created: 6/15/2026, 9:17:23 AM

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