People often overestimate the likelihood of death by shark attack, plane crash, and violence, because news programs emphasize these extreme occurrences to drive up viewer ratings. An individual's tendency to readily recall such instances even though they are objectively rare is the result of the:
A) representativeness heuristic.
B) better-than-average effect.
C) confirmation bias.
D) availability heuristic.

Question

Quizplus · Accepted Answer

The availability heuristic is a mental shortcut that relies on immediate examples that come to a person's mind when evaluating a specific topic, concept, method, or decision. The tendency to overestimate the likelihood of events like shark attacks or plane crashes because they are more memorable and are emphasized in the media is a classic example of the availability heuristic at work. People judge these events as being more common than they actually are because they can easily recall examples of them happening.

People Often Overestimate the Likelihood of Death by Shark Attack