“If you can think of it, it must be important.”

- Esgate, A. & Groome, D. (2004). An Introduction to Applied Cognitive Psychology, definition of the availability heuristic

The availability heuristic is a major concern for librarians, especially those that find they need to convince their clients, patrons or members to use their services. In order to save time, many people will simply focus on information that occurs to them rather than attempting to research something from scratch. In fact, this is a novel way to look at the idea of experience in the workplace. Experience allows you to simply remember how you approached a problem rather than going through the steps of hatching a new solution. If the problems are actually very similar or the result is not very important, then the availability heuristic may not be such a bad thing. However, most professionals are not solving the exact same problems over and over again. Unfortunately, many will still rely on their experience and habits to solve problems rather than conducting research. That is an opportunity for librarians to make a contribution; notice the information habits of your users and then figure out where routines might be changed.

The Research on the Availability Heuristic

The availability heuristic was first discussed in a 1973 article (see references) by two psychologists, Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman. Their discussion explored memory and how experiment participants performed in experiments. I found the article itself to be rather technical, but you have to start somewhere. They do raise some interesting points such as the problem of people remembering and weighting vivid events more than mundane events (e.g. the fact that your flight was delayed once for four hours rather than the dozens or hundreds of times it all went smoothly). This original article and a much more recent article in the British Medical Journal (see references) explore how this bias can undermine the quality of physician decision making. The principle can be found in other contexts, not just life or death situations, such as business and banking.

The availability heuristic is known to be a problem in business and economics research, especially when it comes to risk, the availability heuristic has been noted as a problem. Given that a through understanding of risk is vital for banking and insurance, it is important to see how this bias could affect decisions there. This article – A Cognitive Theory of the Firm – apply the concept in novel ways. Bart Nooteboom makes the argument that the availability heuristic may explain the appeal of immediate gratification over greater long term benefit; immediate gratification is more accessible. The general idea is that people will, by default, go for the option that they remember best or that seems more vivid than other options even if it is far from the best option. The bias has also been called upon to explain the subprime mortgage collapse which was a major cause of the recent recession. Steven Schwarcz in his article, “Protecting Financial Markets: Lessons from the Subprime Mortgage Meltdown,” suggests that mortgage brokers, investors and others fell victim to the availability heuristic in only looking at recent changes in housing prices (e.g. 1990-2000) rather than longer term trends showing that housing prices do not always increase.

Practical Steps to Overcome the Availability Heuristic

• Look for the Mundane Counter-Example: Are you being overly focusing on dramatic cases rather than common cases?
• Call in a librarian: Yes, that’s a bit self-serving, but it can be difficult to get perspective sometimes and how better to help you with that than a professional with research expertise?
• Ask yourself, “Why did I think of this?”: Before acting on memory, consider why it came to mind. Are you remembering something that was merely a recent example or perhaps an example that is particularly emotionally vivid? There may be nothing wrong with that but consider it.

So what do you think? How can librarians help others overcome this bias? Many people may default to Google when searching for information even if it is far from comprehensive and can be manipulated. Demonstrating how the limits of these tools and perhaps referencing the availability heuristic may help you make your case that they should use your services or help you understand your users better.

References:

Behavioural Finance, Availability Heuristic (good basic definition here and references to major articles discussing the problem)

Kahneman, Daniel and Tversky, Amos. “Availability: A heuristic for judging frequency and probability.” Cognitive Psychology (1973)

Klein, Jill G . “Five pitfalls in decisions about diagnosis and prescribing.” British Medical Journal (2005)

Nooteboom, Bart  “A Cognitive Theory of the Firm,” 2002 (a paper)

Schwarcz, Steven L. “Protecting Financial Markets: Lessons from the Subprime Mortgage Meltdown.” American Law & Economics Association Annual Meetings (2008)

Related posts:

1. The Librarian Guide to Cognitive Bias
2. The Librarian Guide to Cognitive Bias: Confirmation Bias
3. The Librarian Guide to Cognitive Bias: Fundamental Attribution Error
4. The Librarian Guide to Cognitive Bias: Selection Bias