Which heuristic relies on the ease with which examples come to mind to make judgments?

The availability heuristic is a mental shortcut that relies on the immediate examples that come to mind when evaluating a particular topic, concept, method, or decision. People using this heuristic assess the likelihood of an event or the frequency of an occurrence based on how easily instances of it can be recalled. When someone can quickly think of examples in their mind, they may perceive that event as more common or more likely to happen.

For instance, if someone has recently heard news stories about airplane crashes, they might overestimate the danger of flying because those vivid examples are readily available in their memory. This heuristic is powerful because it leverages our cognitive processes; we often rely on readily accessible information rather than a comprehensive analysis of all relevant data.

In contrast, while the representativeness heuristic focuses on assessing similarity and categorizing based on known characteristics, and analytic thinking style emphasizes systematic reasoning and logic, the availability heuristic specifically prioritizes the examples that easily come to mind. Judgmental heuristics, while they encompass various shortcuts in decision-making, do not specifically pertain to the ease of recall, which is the key characteristic of the availability heuristic.