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Availability heuristic
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===Media=== After seeing news stories about child abductions, people may judge that the [[likelihood]] of this event is greater. [[Media coverage]] can help fuel a person's example bias with widespread and extensive coverage of unusual events, such as [[homicide]] or [[airline accident]]s, and less coverage of more routine, less sensational events, such as common diseases or [[car accident]]s. For example, when asked to rate the probability of a variety of causes of death, people tend to rate "newsworthy" events as more likely because they can more readily recall an example from memory.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Media's Impact on Society – Media & Society Issues Explained |date=27 February 2022 |url=https://mediaandsociety.org/medias-impact-on-society/ |access-date=2022-11-14 |language=en-US}}</ref> Moreover, unusual and vivid events like homicides, [[shark attacks]], or [[lightning]] are more often reported in mass media than common and un-sensational causes of death like common diseases.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2019-08-04 |title=Social Media's Impact on Society |url=https://www.adcouncil.org/all-articles/social-medias-impact-on-society |access-date=2022-11-14 |website=Ad Council Org |language=en}}</ref> For example, many people think that the likelihood of dying from shark attacks is greater than that of dying from being hit by falling airplane parts when more people actually die from falling airplane parts.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Odds and ends - The San Diego Union-Tribune |url=http://legacy.sandiegouniontribune.com/uniontrib/20040222/news_mz1c22odds.html |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190325193349/http://legacy.sandiegouniontribune.com/uniontrib/20040222/news_mz1c22odds.html |archive-date=2019-03-25 |website=legacy.sandiegouniontribune.com}}</ref> When a shark attack occurs, the deaths are widely reported in the media whereas deaths as a result of being hit by falling airplane parts are rarely reported in the media.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Read |first=J.D. |year=1995 |title=The availability heuristic in person identification: The sometimes misleading consequences of enhanced contextual information |journal=Applied Cognitive Psychology |volume=9 |issue=2 |pages=91–121 |doi=10.1002/acp.2350090202}}</ref> In a 2010 study exploring how vivid television portrayals are used when forming [[social reality]] judgments, people watching vivid violent media gave higher estimates of the prevalence of crime and police immorality in the real world than those not exposed to vivid television. These results suggest that [[Research on the effects of violence in mass media|television violence]] does in fact have a direct causal impact on participants' social reality beliefs. Repeated exposure to vivid violence leads to an increase in people's risk estimates about the prevalence of crime and violence in the real world.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Riddle |first=Karen |year=2010 |title=Always on My Mind: Exploring How Frequent, Recent, and Vivid Television Portrayals Are Used in the Formation of Social Reality Judgments |journal=Media Psychology |volume=13 |issue=2 |pages=155–179 |doi=10.1080/15213261003800140 |s2cid=145074578}}</ref> Counter to these findings, researchers from a similar study argued that these effects may be due to effects of new information. Researchers tested the new information effect by showing movies depicting dramatic risk events and measuring their risk assessment after the film. Contrary to previous research, there were no long-term effects on risk perception due to exposure to dramatic movies. However, the study did find evidence of idiosyncratic effects of the movies - that is, people reacted immediately after the movies with enhanced or diminished risk beliefs, which faded after a period of 10 days.<ref name="SjöbergEngelberg2010">{{Cite journal |last1=Sjöberg |first1=Lennart |last2=Engelberg |first2=Elisabeth |year=2010 |title=Risk Perception and Movies: A Study of Availability as a Factor in Risk Perception |journal=Risk Analysis |volume=30 |issue=1 |pages=95–106 |doi=10.1111/j.1539-6924.2009.01335.x |issn=0272-4332 |pmid=20055978|bibcode=2010RiskA..30...95S |s2cid=10584667 }}</ref> Another measurable effect is the inaccurate estimation of the fraction of deaths caused by terrorism compared to homicides with other causes.<ref>[https://tobiasrose.medium.com/the-enemy-in-our-feeds-e86511488de This Is How Your Fear and Outrage Are Being Sold for Profit]</ref>
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