Introduction
Within the human mind, there are a number of cognitive biases that effect the perceptions of real world events, and how the human mind interprets them. The identification of these biases is critical, as their acknowledgement allows for the establishment for compensatory in such situations. Many of such biases are unknown to individuals, and heavily influence an individual decision-making process. While typically erroneous, these biases have a distinct evolutionary advantage that allowed their survival. During more dangerous eras in human history, such biases would prevent accidental exposure to danger, which led to their survival within modern individuals.
Availability Heuristic
The availability heuristic is a cognitive bias that stems from an individual’s inability to perceive statistical occurrences and chance. It is a mental shortcut that individuals make when pointing to the probability of an event. Through its use, an individual pinpoints to past occurrences of rare events, which makes them much likelier in the eyes of the individual than they otherwise would have. As such, an individual perceives an event occurring on magnitudes more often than would be identified through mere statistical significance. Essentially, the more easily an event or the consequence of an event is to recall, the more likely and consequential we believe these occurrences to be.
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"Availability Heuristic".
While these are oftentimes beneficial in helping individuals avoiding harmful courses of action, they often the ability of an individual to adequately judge certain events. This alters the perceptions of these events, and identifies flaws within human cognition and information processing.
Effects and Influences
There are a number of rare occurrences that are blown out of proportion through the implementation of availability heuristics within a population. This causes the public to take extraordinary and costly measures that in reality have no effect or significance towards the events. For example, beaches experience noticeable drops in attendance in the wake of a shark attack, even though the number of shark attacks globally is incredibly low, and limited to a select few coastlines. This is highly irrational, as even the death toll for shark attacks comes down to singular digits within a year despite a population that has reached over seven billion individuals.
This is also seen within the medical profession, where after decades of government and international awareness campaigns have made all individuals deathly aware of the risks of AIDS transmissions. While risky, the statistical probability of acquiring AIDS within a workplace environment is incredibly low, the awareness of this information did not make the behavior any less risky within the minds of individuals. AIDS is consistently placed within the highly common disease range, despite the fact that very few Americans have AIDS, and that the rate of infection for AIDS is highly restricted to a small demographic that engages in risky behavior that exacerbates this already low risk.
Business is also not exempt from this line of thought, as the area of economics is highly favorable for availability heuristics to be used on a large-scale. Investing is as much psychology as it is statistics, and many investors prey of the availability heuristics of other individuals within the market to make their fortunes. Depending on the news events and forecasts, individuals judge these occurrences based on previously occurred events. While oftentimes flawed, many individuals rely on these assumptions and fallacies in order to justify their economic behavior. Even despite efforts to counteract these biases, the general consumer market is oftentimes found acting in step with availability heuristics. This is counterproductive in certain situations, as consumer behavior can have the effect of slowing down economic growth or efficiencies, as their actions are predicated on events that are in fact rare, but are made more likely by their actions. As such, economists and public policy makers must take these instances into account in order to adjust and nullify any effect that this may have on the general economy.
As demonstrated, availability heuristics are present within a number of disciples and areas of study.
Conclusion
Ultimately, the availability heuristic is present within a number of areas of human life and influence the ability of individuals to adequately interpret these events. The application of this heuristic is apparent within fields such as medicine, media, and business, where the perception of risk is widely distributed within a population. This skews the perceptions that individuals have, and may alter their decision making capabilities by forcing some events to be perceived as much more risky and common than in reality. As displayed within the portrayal of shark attacks, the widespread coverage given to rare events gives the public a perception that these attacks are very common, and that the population should take substantial steps to minimize their exposure to such risks. Individuals must take care to acknowledge these occurrences, as they can affect their ability to properly respond to various scenarios.
