Availability Heuristic: Causes, Merits, Demerits and how it affects interview

In our daily lives, people often have to make certain decisions based on their judgments. This can be in their personal lives, workplaces, and other situations. However, a problem with most judgments is that they are made by humans, and most humans have a tendency to make a decision based on recent events that might be similar. This is called the Availability Heuristic.

It is a way for the mind to make complex judgments easily by relying on information that can be easily remembered. However, this can sometimes stop people from thinking critically and looking for more accurate information that might involve more research.

And depending on the situation, the Availability Heuristic can have massive advantages and disadvantages.

What is the availability heuristic?

It all started in the 1960s, when psychologists Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman were working on determining how humans are influenced by biases and heuristics. They explained that humans will always come up with facts that they can remember while making a decision.

However, this theory was later refined to say that people will make these decisions with whatever comes to their mind first which could or could not be factual. A key example used by Tversky and Kahneman was to ask participants: “If a random word is taken from an English text, is it more likely that the word starts with a K, or that K is the third letter?”

They found that almost all of the candidates immediately started thinking of words that start with ‘k’ rather than words whose third letter was ‘k.’ However, if we put an effort into it, we will find that it is easy to do the latter.

Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman ‘K’ experiment
Letters that start with k	Kangaroo, Knight, Kite,
Letters whose third letter is l	Ask, Like, Likely, Make, Cake, Ankle

Observing the above table, we can see that words whose third letter is k are more often used in our day-to-day conversations. However, the question is structured so that a person immediately starts thinking of the words that start with ‘k’.

They also conducted another experiment in which the candidates were asked to memorize two lists of names. The first list included 19 famous female celebrities and 20 less famous male celebrities, and the second list included 19 famous male celebrities and 20 less famous female celebrities. In both situations, the candidates were able to recall the names of famous celebrities regardless of their gender.

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Causes of Availability heuristic

Publicity by media 

The media knows that for them to thrive, they need to present news that will have a bigger impact. They select news that will have a bigger impact and attract eyeballs. This also means that their audience may be biased towards certain information, which might make them the victim of availability heuristics.

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Emotional empathy 

Humans are emotional creatures, and whether they like it or not, emotions influence their decisions. Incidents that trigger their emotions are likely to stay in their memory. Thus, when faced with situations where they are making decisions based on their emotions, they need to make judgements based on their critical thinking.

Also Read: Interview Bias Audit: A Guide to Fair Hiring Practices

Personal experience 

Another reason for the availability heuristic is that people tend to rely on their personal experience. This acts as a mental shortcut for them to quickly reach a decision, which makes their task much easier. For example, if a person is suffering from a specific illness, he will empathize with another person with the same illness, thus affecting their decisions.

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A likeness for efficiency 

In a corporate workplace, there is always a demand for making the process as efficient as possible. Sometimes, this can come at the cost of accuracy, as people think that quick decision-making is seen as a sign of a person being good at their job and a complex problem solver.

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Repetition of information

Another reason people tend to show signs of availability heuristic is that they tend to remember information that they encounter repeatedly. So, such information can come to a person’s mind first, prompting them to make a decision influenced by such incidents. 

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Advantages of Availability Heuristic

While the availability heuristic is usually not considered a reliable operating method, there are some cases where it can be very useful. 

It can help in making faster decisions. 

There are many times when the decision-making process in an organization is crippled due to the layer of bureaucracy that acts as checks and balances. In such instances, applying the availability heuristic is a welcome way to improve the speed of decision-making. Since there are many checks and balances, any errors can be identified and rectified.

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Helps in making empathetic decisions 

As mentioned earlier, one way people use the availability heuristic is by relying on past experiences. This helps a person connect with past experiences to make emotional connections. For example, if a person was a victim of a toxic workplace, they will tend to be more empathetic to their juniors and also work extra hard to make their workplace a healthy environment.

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Simplifies complex decision 

Another advantage of using the availability heuristic is that it focuses on making the decision process as simple as possible. This way of thinking is of great use in a situation where the decision-making process needs to be simplified so that every stakeholder can understand the things being discussed. Simplifying decisions also means that any loopholes in the system can be identified, as there will be more stakeholders who will be able to understand all the details.

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Disadvantages of the Availability Heuristic

Causes recency bias 

A key disadvantage of the availability heuristic is that people are influenced by recent events. This means that while making a decision, a person might view it from a recent event, which might not be helpful in solving the current problem. For example, if a person had an experience where two of his family or friends were diagnosed with a rare disease, they might think that it is a disease that is more common than it actually is.

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Discourages data-driven decisions 

Companies today are now more and more dependent on making decisions based on data. This is because data offers deep insights and patterns, allowing companies to form better policies. However, for anyone to make data-driven decisions, they have to keep all the biases aside and take a deep look at the data. This takes a lot of time, which is exactly the opposite of what people in the availability heuristic. 

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Leads to stereotyping and misconceptions

People often are dictated by their personal opinions. And many of them are influenced by stereotypes and misconceptions that tend to view situations from their view which is biased. This will often lead them to make decisions that will put an entire group of people in a negative light.

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How Availability Heuristic Can Affect Interview 

One of the greatest challenges that companies face during an interview is to avoid bias while recruiting. It is because bias in the workplace destroys the dynamics of the workplace that can stagnate the growth prospects of the company.

However, availability heuristic increases the chances of bias seeping into the recruitment. With such biases companies will struggle to hire the most suitable candidates for the job. So, for example post interview, a recruiter might favor a candidate who gave such answers that were easy to remember rather than a candidate who might be more skilled.

In addition, an interviewer could lean on past experiences while interviewing a candidate. So, if they find a candidate’s experience might remind the recruiter of a previous candidate. And if the previous experience was negative it would immediately put the current candidate in a bad light without any fault of theirs. 

So, how to avoid this bias? Well, this is where we bring to you the Artificial Intelligence (AI) backed interview assistant tool BarRaiser. With the rise in AI technology, there area host of tools that have massively improved the efficiency of the workplace. BarRaiser is one such tool that will help take your hiring to the next level.

Our state-of-the-art tool gives companies the perfect interview tool that makes quality hiring easy. With BarRiaser users get our AI Interview Copilot that helps the recruiters in conducting a smooth, flawless interview.

Our product analyzes the interview and gives helpful suggestions to the interviewers on what questions to ask and to maintain the speed of the interview. In addition, it also analyzes the recruiter to ensure the interview process is not discriminatory in any way. Our tool can raise an alert if the hiring manager is asking for information which may be pertinent to the interview or the job description. This ensures perfect checks and balances in the system.

We also provide interviewer training to ensure organizations  have the perfect team for the job. Furthermore, we also provide interview as a service in which we will conduct the entire interview process on the behalf of an organization.

Using BarRaiser we guarantee you quality hiring that will also bolster diversity and inclusion. BarRaiser is the best AI interview platform that features structured interviews, AI-generated interview notes,  and tools to ensure quality hiring while eliminating biases from the recruitment process. With BarRaiser’s support, you’ll be well-equipped to build a strong team of sales associates who will drive sales and deliver exceptional customer service.