The Availability Heuristic. The availability heuristic is a mental shortcut that people use when making judgments or decisions. It involves relying on the ease with which information or examples come to mind to assess the likelihood or frequency of events. Essentially, people tend to judge the probability of an event based on how readily they can recall similar instances or examples from memory, often leading to biased or inaccurate judgments. Let's illustrate the availability heuristic with a historical event example: Example: Assessing the Likelihood of Air Travel Accidents Imagine you are trying to assess the safety of air travel, and you're considering whether it's a risky mode of transportation. You might be influenced by the availability heuristic in the following ways: Recent News : If you've recently heard news reports about an airplane crash or aviation accident, that information is readily available in your memory. As a result, you may overestimate the likelih...