People estimate the probability of an event from how easily they can recall examples.

True: established research on cognitive psychology, especially the availability heuristic (Tversky & Kahneman 1973 and the work that followed), shows that people commonly judge how likely an event is by how easily examples come to mind. Mostly true: the effect is well supported, but later research qualifies it in a minor way the claim glosses over, for example ease of recall versus number of examples recalled. Mixed: the evidence is substantially contested. Mostly false: the effect appears only in narrow conditions and the claim states it as general. False: research shows people do not judge probability this way.

Set before the research began.

1. E1 The Availability Heuristic Revisited: Ease of Recall and Content of Recall as Distinct Sources of Information (Chapter 5) - Heuristics and Biases Cambridge University Press (Cambridge Core) · 4 July 2002

   “individuals estimate the frequency of an event or the likelihood of its occurrence “by the ease with which instances or associations come to mind.””

2. E2 The Availability Heuristic Revisited: Ease of Recall and Content of Recall as Distinct Sources of Information (Chapter 5) - Heuristics and Biases Cambridge University Press (Cambridge Core) · 4 July 2002

   “On the other hand, they may recall as many words of each type as possible within the time allotted to them and may base their judgment on the recalled sample of words.”

3. E3 Availability heuristic: what the research shows Propaganda Archive (learn section) · 29 September 2026

   “A 2018 meta-analysis by Evan Weingarten and J. Wesley Hutchinson pooled 263 studies using the Schwarz-style "list a few or many" method and found a medium-sized effect on judgments [5]. It also asked whether subjective ease is what carries the effect, and found the evidence on that question less clear-cut than the effect itself.”

4. E4 Availability heuristic: what the research shows Propaganda Archive (learn section) · 29 September 2026

   “Some of the original demonstrations have been challenged. Peter Sedlmeier, Ralph Hertwig and Gerd Gigerenzer repeated the letter-position task with a wider set of letters and did not find the systematic bias the availability account predicts [6].”

E1, a chapter in the 2002 Heuristics and Biases volume, restates the availability heuristic: people estimate how frequent or likely an event is "by the ease with which instances or associations come to mind," which matches the claim. The same chapter (E2) notes that the classic studies cannot tell whether judgments rest on the felt ease of recall or on what was recalled. The criteria name that exact distinction as a minor qualification. A secondary summary (E3, E4) reports a medium-sized effect, and also a repetition of one original demonstration that did not find the predicted bias, but that does not make the core effect substantially contested.