Elaine watches a news program which covers several violent incidents as well as two murders. Later, when Elaine is asked to estimate the general rate of incidence of homicides in the United States, these examples quickly come to Elaine's mind, and she estimates the incidence rate to be higher than it actually is. This example illustrates the

Question

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This example illustrates the availability heuristic, which is the tendency to estimate the likelihood or frequency of an event based on how easily examples of the event come to mind. In this case, the vivid and recent examples of homicides from the news program made it easier for Elaine to think of them, and therefore she overestimated the general rate of incidence of homicides in the United States.

Elaine Watches a News Program Which Covers Several Violent Incidents