Judgmental biases resulting from differing availabilities of arguments.

Abstract

People often draw social inferences and render social judgments on the basis of relevant information they can recall from memory. Having known John for many years, we may unexpectedly be asked by an adoption agency whether he would make a good father. To decide, we may search our historical knowledge of John for evidence both consistent and inconsistent with our conception of a good father. Does John like children? Does he interact well with them? In answering such questions, we recall a sample of facts from the population of potentially recallable facts relevant to assessing John's fatherhood potential. Having recalled a sample of relevant facts, we use these, perhaps in some Bayesian weighting scheme, to decide whether or not John would be a good father.

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