Which concept describes the mental shortcut based on how easily an example can be recalled from memory?

• A. Representativeness Heuristic
• B. Intuition
• C. Availability Heuristic
• D. Framing

Answer: (C)

Availability heuristic describes the mental shortcut based on how easily an example can be recalled from memory. When an event is recent, dramatic, or personally salient, it comes to mind quickly, so we infer it is more common or likely than it actually is. This explains why vivid news stories—like plane crashes—can make people overestimate their real frequency, even though statistics may show otherwise. The idea hinges on memory accessibility: what’s easiest to recall tends to seem most representative of reality.

This isn’t about similarity to a prototype (that would be a representativeness approach), nor about a gut feeling without a memory retrieval mechanism (intuition), nor about how information is framed to sway decisions (framing). Those ideas involve different triggers for judgment, whereas the availability mindset centers on how readily memory brings an example to mind.