The availability bias largely explains why advertising works. When we have to buy a product, on average, the brand we have seen on television or on social media comes to mind; In fact, there are brands so popular that they have become generic. People are not always aware of how we act and react at times to very simple heuristics and, above all, to the first thing that comes to mind.
For example, if you’re wondering which animal is the most venomous animal in the world, you’ll probably think of snakes and spiders; we treat it as valid information stored in the brain that is transmitted orally, without criticizing it. The sea wasp is the deadliest creature today.
- On the other hand.
- There is something important that we must take into account.
- This bias is to blame for many of the distortions that we unconsciously carry with us and this dark reality: the fear of flying is more common than the fear of driving.
- When a traffic accident occurs.
- With tragic consequences is much more likely to happen than on a plane.
There are people who place a lottery bet every day thinking that sooner or later your turn will come, when the chance of success can be 1 in 15 million. We all value, in a way, this information that is more accessible to memory, the information we assume is the most prototypical.
You and your partner talk about the best holiday destination, suddenly a proposal appears, a paradise and almost perfect place, now it’s a while before you remember a story you read about this place, about the number of flights that happen in this city. You tell him and you suggest it’s better to throw this town away.
With this small example we see how the mind works using very rudimentary mental shortcuts to make decisions, you do it based on the most information available, regardless of its source, in this case we conclude that it is best to delete this site by a read article. We do not mix more data or more variables for or against. The matter is settled.
The field of human judgment and how to take advantage of one or the other option is an area that has always been of interest to psychology, however, it was not until 1970 that Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman described what they themselves defined as heuristic availability. It is precisely those situations in which, when evaluating a topic, we always do so using the most accessible ones. To better understand, let’s delve into the topic.
The human mind will always keep the information more up-to-date, in a similar way, we also tend to remember everything associated with a strong emotional component, this is well explored in the world of marketing and advertising, so they always try to use this factor. , seeking to arouse emotions among consumers.
For example, if we are going to buy toilet paper, it is common for a particular brand to come to mind that has as an image adorable golden retrievers, advertising makes us go to the supermarket with the feeling that some products are familiar to us. and we chose them almost without knowing why.
The availability bias leads us to issue answers using what is always in our recent and emotional memory.
There is a third factor regarding the availability bias that it is important to consider: having lived certain experiences in our own skin will also allow us to remember them better, making them more available in the mind.
For example, if someone asks us what’s the worst thing a person can experience, we can say it’s: go through depression?Because that’s what we just experienced. For others, it will be the premature loss of a parent, because that’s what happened. We don’t always consider other options because we just don’t know them and the brain doesn’t consider them.
Scott Plous, social psychologist and professor of psychology in the Department of Psychology at Wesleyan University, is one of the most studied freely available heuristics, and in his work, Heuristics of Availability explains the following:
“The more accessible an event is, the more frequent and likely it will appear; the longer the information lives, the more convincing and memorable it will be, and the more obvious something is, the more causal it will seem.
If the mind works according to these patterns, it is mainly due to a fact. Throughout our evolution, the brain has always actively sought to issue responses and behaviors. The goal is to save time and energy: you have to optimize mental work and act quickly to survive and adapt to the environment.
What does that mean? This implies that the heuristics of availability will always be that shortcut that will help us to evaluate the options with agility, regardless of the validity of the information, we give the truth to the facts as if they were the only ones in the world and thus simplify our reality. so we can act quickly.
Sometimes this is useful. However, it is always necessary to make a small effort and take into account that our mind is a universe of prejudices, to take this into account and to relativize some of our thoughts, giving us time and tranquility, can be very beneficial.