Availability Bias

Overview

The availabilty bias is the tendnecy of people to rely on information that is easily and immediately available to ones memory. Sometimes this is manifested in the tendency of a person to agree with the person that they talked to last.

When making judgments, people try to recall examples that are relevant to the judgment, and then to rely on those examples to provide a solution. However, ones quick memory is limited and the examples that one can recall are limited.

The tendency to try to recall examples that one has experienced can short circuit rational decision making in that ones experience is also limited in scope.