Availability heuristic

This article gives a basic definition in behavioral economics.
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Definition

The availability heuristic is the phenomenon whereby people are likely to overestimate the probability of an event depending on how available it is to them, i.e., how easily and vividly they can remember or imagine it. The availability heuristic has two closely related aspects:

• Accessibility: This is the ease and extent to which they can access memories/images of the event.
• Salience: This is the extent of drama or memorability of the event.

Relation with other heuristics

• Anchoring and adjustment heuristic: This is closely related to the availability heuristic. In fact, some forms of anchoring and adjustment are very similar to availability, in as much as quantities that a person has been recently exposed to (and hence, that are more available to that person) influence the person's estimation of related quantities.