Trace where your sense of risk actually came from
When a risk feels pressing, ask whether you’ve encountered data or just stories about it.
Key takeaways
- What it is: When a risk feels pressing, ask whether you’ve encountered data or just stories about it.
- Why it works: The availability heuristic judges frequency and probability by how easily examples come to mind. In an availability cascade, the supply of examples is driven by social repetition, not by actual event frequency. Tracing the source of your "this feels common" sense — asking "have I seen data on incidence, or have I just heard many stories?" — interrupts the automatic identification of vividness with frequency.
- Evidence: Backed by observational / correlational evidence.
- Avoid: Mistaking the emotional intensity of a risk story for evidence of its probability — vividness and frequency are genuinely different things that feel the same.
Why it works
The availability heuristic judges frequency and probability by how easily examples come to mind. In an availability cascade, the supply of examples is driven by social repetition, not by actual event frequency. Tracing the source of your "this feels common" sense — asking "have I seen data on incidence, or have I just heard many stories?" — interrupts the automatic identification of vividness with frequency.
How to do it
- 1When a risk or problem feels especially salient or urgent, ask: "Where have I encountered this? News coverage, personal experience, or data?"
- 2Count the types of sources: are they primary data or narrative retelling of a few cases?
- 3Look up the base rate (how often this actually occurs) before deciding how much weight to give the fear.
What the evidence says
ObservationalThe availability heuristic (Tversky & Kahneman, 1973) is one of the most replicated effects in judgment research: ease of recall is treated as a proxy for frequency. Kuran and Sunstein extended this to social cascades in 1999.
- — Tversky & Kahneman (1973), "Availability: A Heuristic for Judging Frequency and Probability," Cognitive Psychology
- — Kuran & Sunstein (1999), "Availability Cascades and Risk Regulation," Stanford Law Review
Common mistake
Mistaking the emotional intensity of a risk story for evidence of its probability — vividness and frequency are genuinely different things that feel the same.
IX Coach asks "where is this coming from?" when you express concern about a risk in a session, helping you distinguish data-based worry from cascade-amplified worry before deciding how to respond.
Practice this with IX Coach →