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Averting Catastrophe

by Cass R. Sunstein

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Indexed Notes by Topic

Availability Heuristic

Insights:

  1. People's intuition is often the result of the availability heuristic.
  2. Judgement of risk is often based on the availability heuristic: the risk of shark attacks is lower than many people perceive.
  3. The availability heuristic can result in people focusing on the short term over the long term, especially when it comes to risk.
  4. Probability estimates are highly skewed by the availability heuristic.