Everything can be seen as a combination of balancing opposing forces, encompassing both the good and bad. Even our own biases. How does this balance pan out, when it comes to a concept that appears inherently negative in connotation? Let’s start by understand what availability bias is.

On March 8th 2014, Malaysian Airlines flight 370 took off from Kuala Lumpur for Beijing, with 227 passengers and 12 crew members. The flight “disappeared” somewhere over the Indian Ocean, mysteriously losing contact. Even debris haven’t been located since. The tragic yet unusual event was widely covered across international media, and was the subject of several conspiracy theories subsequently. For Malaysian Airlines, sales in China slumped 60% and the company subsequently had one of its worst quarters ever. Four months later, on the 17th of July, Malaysian Arlines flight 17 from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur was shot down by a missile, somewhere over Ukraine, killing all 298 on board. Public sentiment in general, to quote an industry expert was, “perception is everything in the airline industry. Unfortunately for Malaysia Airlines, potential international customers are now going to link the brand to tragedy.” Post these twin incidents, the airline reported to be losing over $1 Million every day. While the impact is not surprising, consider the following:
1. The first event didn’t change the probability of flight accidents in that route, nor gave any information that was directly related to Malaysian airlines safety record
2. The second incident made it clearly unsafe for any air travel over Ukrainian air space

Knowing this, would you have reconsidered taking a subsequent Malaysian airline flight in general? Probably not.

The availability heuristic, also known as availability bias, is a mental shortcut that relies on immediate examples that come to a given person’s mind when evaluating a specific topic, concept, method or decision. We amplify the frequency and the magnitude of what we can easily recall. For leaders, availability bias often leads to poor decisions based on faulty rationale. To understand what we recall easily, lets analyse the following three statements:

Vivid, emotive information has better recall

James Williams, a famed psychologist, says “The attention which we lend to an experience is proportional to its vivid or interesting character; and it is a notorious fact that what interests us most vividly at the time is, other things equal, what we remember best. An impression may be so exciting emotionally as almost to leave a scar on the cerebral tissue”

Vivid however, doesn’t necessarily imply accurate. In a study by Kim Wade at the University of Warwick, she colluded with the parents of her student participants to get photos from the undergraduates’ childhoods, and to ascertain whether certain events, such as a ride in a hot-air balloon, had ever happened. She then doctored some of the images to show the participant’s childhood face in one of these never-experienced contexts, such as the basket of a hot-air balloon in flight. Two weeks after they were shown the pictures, about half of the participants “remembered” the childhood balloon ride, producing some strikingly vivid descriptions. Many showed surprise when they heard that the event had never occurred !

In the realms of memory, the fact that it is vivid doesn’t guarantee that it really happened.

To make sense of this, memory researcher Martin Conway has described how two forces go head to head in remembering. The force of correspondence tries to keep memory true to what actually happened, while the force of coherence ensures that the emerging story fits in with the needs of the self, which often involves portraying the ego in the best possible light. We then re-construct or re-create “reality” while recalling events or information and that becomes our (subjective) truth.

Media amplifies the unusual

Here’s an ironic example of amplification of the unusual. The New York review of books quoted famed scientist Freeman Dyson saying, “A striking example of availability bias is the fact that sharks save the lives of swimmers. Careful analysis of deaths in the ocean near San Diego shows that on average, the death of each swimmer killed by a shark saves the lives of ten others. Every time a swimmer is killed, the number of deaths by drowning goes down for a few years and then returns to the normal level. The effect occurs because reports of death by shark attack are remembered more vividly than reports of drownings.” An unusual, interesting story that was amplified and even referenced widely. It is in-fact, a good example not because it is vivid and emotive, but because it turns out to be false. A fact check led to Dyson correcting himself saying, “sorry I cannot document my story about sharks. I heard the story when I was living in San Diego some years ago and I have no record of the source. I should have said it was an urban legend rather than a scientific fact.” Some stories are written to amplify, not educate.

How aware are we of the unusual & vivid stories we are consuming ? Where do we get information that helps improve our judgement? For me, its books and well researched articles that I deliberately curate. Read more about another irony, the Peter principle here.

Recency aids easier recall

One obvious reason for ubiquitous advertising, with marketeers attempting top-of-mind recall (TOM) and spontaneous recall (SPONT) is to leverage availability bias. Since we remember and recall of repeated brand messages more easily, we amplify the likelihood of us considering a purchase. An oft repeated headline message on the state of the economy, leads to better recall and impacts our decisions. The news and media channels we chose to consume, actually have a much larger influence on our decisions than we’d like to believe, even if we believe ourselves to be discerning on how we absorb. Simply because it impacts what we recall. Our decisions are therefore biased by information that is more recent.

Identify which decisions are high impact and be more deliberate on how we make them

It’s true: Human Decision are availability biased

When we accept this for a fact, some interesting possibilities emerge. Not all decisions are created equal. Many times we want to take quick and clear decisions and that’s fine. At other times, we aim to influence others in a positive way or guide actions of others we are responsible for.

A constructive use of this bias is often how trusted advisors bring in vivid examples of the opposite factor to trigger deeper thinking. Regarding investing, advisors appropriately increase investors’ level of fear during good times by showing them that history is filled with unexpected events that led to bear markets. During bear markets, they help prop up investor confidence by reminding them of similar situations when everything eventually turned out well. Changing culture, requires oft repeated messages that resonate and can have remarkable positive impact. The lion warriors of Kenya, turning an age old tradition of killing a lion as a right of passage for manhood, into saving an endangered lion as a new ritual instead.

When used truthfully, availability bias is a key tool in a marketeers tool kit

In conclusion, some techniques to improve our judgement to factor for the availability heuristic (or bias) are:

• Sharply reduce & be more mindful of your media consumption. Switch to reading books & well researched articles instead
• Maintaining a decision journal can help anchor our memories, both on the basis for decisions and to reflect on it subsequently
• Build in checks to recall sources of the information you are using to make judgement. Ask yourself, how recent is the information and is there information prior to this that we should include ?
• Deliberately assess the probability of events the magnitude of its impact. If you can’t do that , then cast the net wider
• Constitute a diverse team, who naturally challenge the basis for each others decisions