Behavioural Economics Primer: Availability bias

This article gives an overview of the behavioural economics concept of availability bias, our judgement of the likelihood of an event, or frequency of its occurrence based on the ease with which examples come to mind.

Behavioural Economics Primer: Availability bias

Crawford Hollingworth The Behavioural Architects

Behavioural economics

This article is part of Warc's Behavioural Economics Primer.

We often judge the likelihood of an event, or frequency of its occurrence by the ease with which examples and instances come to mind.

More emotionally impactful, disastrous or memorable events are likely to be considered more probable. Things that are more commonly or vividly shown in the media; violent murders for example, or a disaster like 9/11, we tend to remember more than less noteworthy or salient news. A minor accident in the workplace or...

Not a subscriber?

Schedule your live demo with our team today

WARC helps you to plan, create and deliver more effective marketing

  • Prove your case and back-up your idea

  • Get expert guidance on strategic challenges

  • Tackle current and emerging marketing themes

We’re long-term subscribers to WARC and it’s a tool we use extensively. We use it to source case studies and best practice for the purposes of internal training, as well as for putting persuasive cases to clients. In compiling a recent case for long-term, sustained investment in brand, we were able to support key marketing principles with numerous case studies sourced from WARC. It helped bring what could have been a relatively dry deck to life with recognisable brand successes from across a broad number of categories. It’s incredibly efficient to have such a wealth of insight in one place.

Insights Team
Bray Leino

You’re in good company

We work with 80% of Forbes' most valuable brands* and 80% of the world's top top-of-the-class agencies.

* Top 10 brands