Availability Heuristic - Critiques

Critiques

Some researchers have suggested that perceived causes or reasons for an event, rather than imagery of the event itself, influence probability estimates. Evidence for this notion stems from a study where participants either imagined the winner of the debate, or came up with reasons for why Ronald Reagan or Walter Mondale would win the 1984 U.S. Presidential Candidate debate. The results of this study explained that imagining Reagan or Mondale winning the debate had no effect on predictions of who would win the debate. However, imagining and considering reasons for why Reagan or Mondale would win the debate did significantly affect predictions.

Other psychologists argue that the classic studies on the availability heuristic are vague and do not explain the underlying processes. For example, in the famous Tversky and Kahneman study, Wanke et al. believe that this differential ease of recall, may alter subjects’ frequency estimates in two different ways. In one way, as the availability heuristic suggests, the subjects may use the subjective experience of ease or difficulty of recall as a basis of judgment. Researchers also assert that if this is done, they would predict a higher frequency if the recall task is experienced as easy rather than difficult. In a contrasting scenario, researchers suggest that the subjects may recall as many words of each type as possible within the time given to them and may base their judgment on the recalled sample of words. If it is easier to recall words which begin with a certain letter, these words would be over-represented in the recalled sample, again producing a prediction of higher frequency. In the second scenario the estimate would be based on recalled content rather than on the subjective experience of ease of recall.

Some researchers have shown concern about confounding variables in the original Tversky and Kahneman study. Researchers question if the participants recalling celebrity names were basing frequency estimates on the amount of content recalled or on the ease of recall. Some researchers suggest that the design of the earlier experiment was flawed and did not actually determine how the availability heuristic works.

Recent research has provided some evidence that the availability heuristic is only one of many strategies involved in frequency judgment. Future research should attempt to incorporate all these factors.