Definitions
Availability bias
can be defines as: ”The more easily people can call some scenario
to mind, the more available it is to them, the more probable they
find it to be. Any fact or incident that is especially vivid, or
recent, or common, or anything that happened to preoccupy the person,
was likely to be recalled with special ease, and so be
disproportionately weighed in any judgment.” This is what
psychologists call availability bias.
Any available impulse can matter
Many impulses have
an effect on you every day. Your senses receive inputs all the time.
You are not reacting to all of them. It is just more probable that
you react, when things are more available. You can get impulses from
the media, friends, colleagues and even from your neighborhood, etc.
Your brains are saving energy all the time. Using what is available
takes less energy than putting missing pieces together. Sometimes you
overestimate what is important, because some impulses are more
available than others. These impulses can have an effect later on.
You can retreive them from your memory. The more memorable some event
has been, the more probable is it´s effect on you.
Events that have
occurred to you are more easily available than events you have read
from the paper or seen in TV. For example, if you have seen a traffic
accident, you will retrieve it from your memory more easily compared
to an accident you have read from the paper. Frequency of the event
matters too. For example, when you are working in a company, some of
your colleagues give you available clues of how to behave. The ways
your closest colleagues behave, give the most available clues for
your behavior.
Focusing too much on the present and
recent events, instead of thinking about the future
It is easier to focus on the events that have happened recently or happening
right now. For example, when the airplanes crashed into twin towers
in 2001, people started to travel more by car. They overestimated a
probability of terrorist attacks done with airplanes. This lead to
more deaths in traffic after the 9/11, because going by car is more
dangerous. Present events are available more easily than recent
events.
You can also think
that something has more value now than in the future. For example,
most people would rather get 100$s today than wait six months to get
150$s. When you are making a decision, you are mostly thinking about
the first order effects. They are more available in your mind than
the second or third order effects. For example, buying something can
feel like a no-brainer, because you only think about the price you
pay now. Using a credit card can make you forget about the interests
you have to pay later.
Anchoring
You have a
tendency to anchor yourself too heavily on the first piece of offered
information, when you are making decisions. Different starting points
yield different estimates. These estimates are biased toward the
initial values. For example, you are represented two different
sentences before asking a question. First sentence says ”There are
approximately two hundred members in United Nations.” Second
sentence says ”There are two countries in north America.” Then
you get a question: ”How many countries are in Africa?” Unless
you know the right answer, the first sentence anchors your guess to a
bigger number than the second sentence. In my own experience,
anchoring can have an effect in almost anything. For example, after
you buy some item first time, the properties of the first item are
the anchors for buying same items in the future. This my own view and
I don´t really know if it applies in reality or it is a result of my
imagination. You should think about this yourself.
Using/avoiding availability bias
First and foremost
available impulses work most often as triggers for some other
psychological tendencies, or behavior. They are not so significant by
themselves. You should design your environment in a way that
available triggers are good for you. You should also avoid an
environment in which available triggers are bad for you. Latter
option is not always available, because you cannot control
everything. For example, if you are on a diet and you have no
forbidden foods at home, you cannot control what other people eat
with you. Designing your environment in a way that bad triggers are
not available is not always worth the effort. If the opportunity cost is bigger than the benefit, you should forget it. You should probably
focus on getting the biggest benefits and avoiding biggest damages.
Sources:
-TT
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