The Affect Heuristic: How Feelings Become Facts About Risk
Paul Slovic found that people who feel positively about nuclear power judge its risks as low and its benefits as high.
December 2024
November 2024
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.
December 2022
What Is the Availability Heuristic: How Recent Events Skew Thinking
The availability heuristic makes us judge probability by how easily examples come to mind. Learn how it distorts risk perception and how to...
August 2022
What Is the Availability Cascade: How Repeated Claims Become Accepted Truth
The availability cascade explains how repeated media coverage turns unverified claims into perceived facts.