Events like last Saturday's Asiana Airlines plane crash are not only tragic; they can also make us feel more vulnerable. Vivid images of burned planes help us form clear images in our minds, and constant, urgent press coverage helps reinforce our memories for these events. Later, when we ponder whether it is safe to fly, vivid pictures of plane wrecks become easily available cognitively. We might feel more fearful of flying than is truly warranted.
This cognitive phenomenon, of course, is covered in Chapter 2--as the availability heuristic, or the "pop up principle." What pops up easily to mind is likely to influence our thinking. In the case of a vivid plane crash, this can be a problem, because in fact people are extremely unlikely to die in a plane crash.
This blogger summarizes this research in his article, ‘How plane crashes mess with our rationality.” As he illustrates in the graph, we are statistically much more likely to die in a fatal car accident than in a plane crash, yet many of us don't think twice about hopping in the car.
As Chapter 2 explains, intuition can be biased by heuristics such as the pop-up principle. The most accurate way to assess our risk of engaging in certain activities is to look at the data—not trust our intuition. The blogger gets this too: “Bar graphs do serve as balm for the soul.” See if you can let bar graphs, not scary images, guide your gut feelings about flying.
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