Availability Heuristic

We judge the likelihood of events by how easily examples come to mind — not by actual statistical frequency. Dramatic, emotionally vivid events are cognitively "available" and therefore feel more probable than they are. Shark attacks kill approximately 5 people per year worldwide; car accidents kill 40,000 per year in the US alone. Yet many people fear sharks more than driving. After a plane crash dominates the news, flight bookings drop — despite flying being 95 times safer than driving per mile. Introduced by Kahneman and Tversky in 1973, the availability heuristic explains much of what media coverage and viral social content does to our perception of reality.