People typically believe that fires cause more deaths, but statistics reveal that drowning actually causes significantly more deaths than fire. Some researchers argue that we make this error because TV news programs show much more footage of fires than drowning, because fires are more exciting to televise. This presumably makes it much easier for us to call up examples of death by fire. This particular finding is best considered as an example of a judgment error caused by:

Question

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The availability heuristic is a mental shortcut where people judge the likelihood of events based on how easily examples come to mind. Since fires are more frequently shown on TV, they are more readily recalled, leading to the mistaken belief that they cause more deaths than drowning.

People Typically Believe That Fires Cause More Deaths, but Statistics