Availability bias: what it is and how it affects us

Of these two countries, which is the one with the largest population: Ukraine or Uganda?

Human beings work with mental shortcuts, cognitive processes that facilitate the complex and heavy process of thinking. This way of working of our mind helps us to judge reality more quickly but has the effect that sometimes we make mistakes due to cognitive biases.

The bias that we are going to talk about today is that of availability, which is closely related to the question we just asked you. If you want to know both the answer and know what is availability bias aboutWe invite you to continue reading.

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What is availability bias?

The availability bias, also called the availability heuristic, is the tendency for humans to judge the frequency or likelihood of an event in terms of how easy it is to think of related examples. In the use of this mental process, the most important factor for individuals is not the content of the memory, but the ease with which we remember or imagine a certain content.

We can define the availability bias as a mental shortcut that is based on immediate examples that come to mind when we evaluate a certain question, theme, concept, method or a decision specific. So that we understand it better, we are going to talk about the question we asked in the introduction: which country has the most population? Most likely, you thought that it is Ukraine. If so, you are wrong: the correct answer is Uganda.

The reason you've thought of Ukraine is pure availability bias. At the moment, this Eastern European country is in the spotlight of the media, being the subject of debate in international politics. Instead, Uganda is an African country that draws little attention in international politics, is not often talked about in the news and is not as famous. In fact, it is quite likely that you will have a hard time locating it on the map.

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What is the function of this bias?

As we were saying, the availability bias acts as a shortcut, a psychological process that helps us think quickly and easily. This bias serves to help us make decisions quickly, taking into account our own or others' past experience, recent events and information that we have in our memory.

The availability bias serves as a quick and partially effective strategy (we are not always right) to give the best possible response, or what we believe to be the best possible response, in a situation of which we have little information. This phenomenon is highly influenced by emotional experiences and strong anecdotes, which would explain why in many situations the human being trusts an event or data experienced in a very personal way more than statistical information that he does not understand.

The goal of the availability bias is to save time and mental energy. This is confirmed by Scott Plous, a social psychologist and professor of psychology in the Department of Psychology at Wesleyan University, one of the researchers most familiar with this heuristic. He himself indicates that the more accessible an event is, the more frequent and probable it will seem to us.; The more vivid the information, the more convincing and easy to remember it will be, and finally, the more obvious something is to us, the more causal it will seem.

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Availability bias effects

As its name suggests, this bias works from the information that one has, especially the most recent. Our mind works in such a way that, if something is easily remembered, it interprets it as more important or decisive in the situation in which we find ourselves. People tend to guide our judgments largely on the most recent issues, generating new opinions conditioned by the latest news. It would be basically for this reason that one would think of Ukraine rather than Uganda in the question with which we began the article.

One of the effects of the availability bias is that it influences our intuitions. In fact, we could say that intuitions are based on the most recent information we have or the one we trust the most. Consequently, both our fears and decisions are not guided by calculations or reasoning, but by information, of a marked emotional nature, that we have available. This can make us attribute a lot of importance to a situation experienced and be afraid of things that we do not know.

Often, we take for granted the first thing that comes to mind, without analyzing it, much less questioning it.. Because of this bias, we make decisions without thinking about them and, although we do not always have to make mistakes, it certainly increases the possibility that we will screw up.

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Availability bias and advertising

In 1970, Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman named what they defined as the availability heuristic. They described it as those situations in which, when analyzing a certain topic or question, we do so using the information that we have most accessible in our minds. We give greater value to the most recent information with the greatest emotional impact, something that is constantly used by the world of marketing.

Availability bias allows us to understand why advertising works. When we find ourselves in the supermarket, when buying a product, the brand that we have seen on television or on social networks comes to mind. Since we have that information available in our minds, we will be more likely to choose products from a brand that we know or that has influenced us emotionally than another more anonymous one, even if it has a cheaper or better price quality.