The Availability Heuristic
Tversky and Kahneman asked subjects whether more English words begin with the letter K or have K as their third letter. Most said K-first — wrong by a factor of three. Words starting with K are just easier to retrieve. The availability heuristic: we judge probability and frequency by how easily examples come to mind, not by how common they actually are. The science behind risk misperception, media effects, and why we fear the wrong things.