Scarcity Heuristic

In human psychology, the scarcity heuristic is a mental shortcut that places a value on an item based on how easily it might be lost, especially to competitors.

The scarcity heuristic stems from the idea that more difficult it is to acquire an item the more value that item has. In many situations we use an item’s availability, its perceived abundance, to quickly and accurately estimate quality and/or utility. In other situations, the scarcity heuristic can lead to systemic errors or cognitive bias.

Scarcity appears to have created a number of heuristics such as when price is used as a cue to the quality of products (Rao & Monroe, 1989), as cue to the healthfulness of medical conditions (Ditto & Jemmott, 1989), and as a cue to the sexual content of books when age restrictions are put in place (Pincus & Waters, 1976). These heuristic judgments should increase a stimulus' desirability to those who value the inferred attributes.