availability heuristic. You tend to believe anecdotes and individual sensational news stories are more representative of the big picture than they are. If you see lots of shark attacks in the news, you think, “Gosh, sharks are out of control.” What you should think is “Gosh, the news loves to cover shark attacks.” The availability heuristic shows you make decisions and think thoughts based on the information you have at hand, while ignoring all the other information that might be out there.
