The availability heuristic, also known as availability bias, is a mental shortcut that relies on immediate examples that come to a person's mind when evaluating a specific topic or decision. This heuristic operates on the assumption that if something can be recalled easily, it must be important, or at least more important than alternatives that are not as readily recalled. This bias tends to favor recently acquired information and influences people's perception of the magnitude of actions' consequences based on the ease of recall.
For instance, in a study by Tversky and Kahneman, participants were asked whether there are more words in English that start with the letter 'K' or have 'K' as the third letter. Most recalled words starting with 'K' easily, leading them to erroneously conclude that 'K' is more frequent as the first letter than the third.
To overcome the availability heuristic, it's crucial to seek out diverse sources of information, consider statistical data, and challenge initial impressions by exploring less available or harder-to-recall alternatives.