The Human Shortcut Series: The Availability Heuristic

Georgia Hodkinson GMBPsS

Organisational Psychologist

The Loudest Thought Wins

You know how, when people are tired, overloaded, or emotionally stretched, the most recent, most vivid, or most dramatic example (Bordalo et al., 2023) suddenly feels like the whole truth? Well that’s the availability heuristic.

In organisations under pressure, this shortcut quietly shapes decisions about risk, performance, wellbeing, and people, often without anyone noticing.

This blog explores how the availability heuristic shows up when energy is low, why it’s tightly linked to fatigue and wellbeing, and what leaders and teams can do about it.

What Is the Availability Heuristic?

The availability heuristic is our tendency to judge how common or important something is based on how easily it comes to mind

This is a shortcut that the brain uses to conserve energy. When cognitive resources are healthy, we pause and look wider, staying curious. When resources are depleted, we rely on what’s mentally closest (Hjeij & Vilks, 2023).

A Simple Metaphor

Remember the highlights that you got from LinkedIn, ChatGPT, Spotify? Well this heuristic works similarly by only allowing your brain to replay the moments that were:

• recent

• emotional

• dramatic

• vivid

• repeated

  
  

Those moments feel bigger than they are because they’re easier to recall and quiet, steady, non-dramatic data rarely makes the reel, even if it matters more.

Why Fatigue Makes Availability Bias Louder

Fatigue changes how the brain searches for information.

When energy is low, we see:

• reduced working memory

• narrower attention

• increased emotional weighting

• less tolerance for ambiguity

• faster conclusions

So instead of asking: “What does the full picture look like?”

The brain asks: “What example do I already have?”

This is why tired teams become reactive.

Heuristics are shaped by what systems repeatedly expose people to, reward attention for, and emotionally amplify. Bordalo et al. (2023) show that probability judgements shift depending on how information is cued, framed, and recalled, even when underlying facts remain unchanged.

How the Availability Heuristic Shows Up at Work

Wellbeing Decisions

• One visible burnout case → “Everyone is struggling”

• One vocal complaint → “Morale is terrible”

• One absence → “People aren’t coping”

Sometimes it’s just a partial snapshot mistaken for the whole system.

Performance Judgements

• A recent mistake overshadows months of solid work

• One bad meeting defines someone’s competence

• A single incident becomes someone’s reputation

Availability replaces proportion, allowing the brain to exacerbate situations.

Risk & Safety Conversations

• A recent near-miss dominates decision-making

• Rare events feel common

• Common risks feel invisible because they’re boring

This is especially critical in high-risk sectors and deeply linked to fatigue and attention.

Communication Breakdowns

• A tense email colours future interactions

• One misunderstanding becomes “how they always are”

• People stop checking assumptions

The mind fills gaps with what’s easiest to recall, not what’s most accurate.

Research using large-scale healthcare data shows just how powerfully availability bias shapes decisions under pressure. A study of over 416,000 emergency department cases across 104 hospitals found that when doctors had recently diagnosed a rare but serious condition (pulmonary embolism), they became significantly more likely to test subsequent patients for the same condition, even when clinical risk factors hadn’t changed. In the 10 days following the diagnosis, testing rates increased by around 15%, before gradually returning to baseline (Ly, 2021).

This wasn’t driven by changes in patient risk, guidelines, or workload, it was driven by what was most mentally available to the clinician at the time.

The Wellbeing Cost of Availability Bias

When availability bias goes unchecked, it quietly reshapes workplace wellbeing. Teams become more anxious, more reactive, and more emotionally exhausted, as decisions are driven by what feels most urgent rather than what is most accurate. Over time, this fuels firefighting cultures, unfair or inconsistent decision-making, and an erosion of psychological safety. People begin responding to perceived threats instead of real patterns, creating “walking on eggshells” environments where energy is spent managing anxiety rather than doing meaningful work. In already demanding systems, this cognitive strain compounds, accelerating fatigue and burnout.

Why Leaders Are Especially Vulnerable

Leaders under pressure are flooded with dashboards, incidents, escalations and emails and what rises to the top isn’t always what matters most, it’s what’s loudest. This influemces organisations to drift into reactive strategy, constant reprioritisation, initiative overload and short-term thinking disguised as decisiveness.

Availability bias doesn’t mean leaders are careless. It means they’re human, operating under cognitive strain.

You Can Design Around This!

Reducing availability bias is about designing systems that support better thinking. That includes separating anecdotes from patterns, slowing decisions when fatigue is high, pairing vivid stories with base-rate data, creating space between incident and interpretation and deliberately asking “What isn’t being noticed right now?”. this is usually in the form of structured reflection and balanced data presentation.

If you are aiming to soften the availability heuristic today, first start by noticing when something feels urgent because it’s recent and asking: “Is this common, or just memorable?”. Its important to check whether fatigue is narrowing your focus by pausing before drawing conclusions and protecting energy as a thinking resource. Just remember Clarity is harder when you’re overloaded and that’s not a personal failure.

The research suggests an important shift: availability bias is best addressed through system design, not awareness training alone. Structures that slow decision-making at key moments, surface base rates and trends, and create space for collective sense-making reduce reliance on what is merely salient (Hjeij & Vilks, 2023).

Why This Matters More Than Ever

Modern work environments are saturated with:

• constant updates

• alerts

• notifications

• emotional noise

In these conditions, availability bias is the default. If organisations want better wellbeing, fairer decisions, and calmer cultures, they must stop treating thinking quality as an individual responsibility and start treating it as a system outcome.

Final Reflection

The availability heuristic reminds us of something uncomfortable but freeing:

What feels urgent isn’t always what’s most important. What’s loud isn’t always what matters most.

When energy is protected and systems support reflection, people stop reacting to highlights and start seeing the whole picture. That’s where better decisions and better wellbeing live.

References

Bordalo, P., Conlon, J. J., Gennaioli, N., Kwon, S. Y., & Shleifer, A. (2023). Memory and probability. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 138(1), 265–311.

Hjeij, M., & Vilks, A. (2023). A brief history of heuristics: How did research on heuristics evolve? Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, 10(1), 1–15.

Ly, D. P. (2021). The influence of the availability heuristic on physicians in the emergency department. Annals of Emergency Medicine, 78(5), 650-657.

About the Author

Written by Georgia Hodkinson, GMBPsS, Organisational Psychologist, and Founder of Georgia’s PsyWork Ltd.

Georgia specialises in fatigue, cognitive load, wellbeing, communication, and behaviour design, supporting organisations to improve clarity, performance, and psychological safety. She is currently progressing towards Chartered Status in Occupational Psychology (BPS Stage 2).

Georgia is also Director of Operations & Marketing at the Psychology Business Incubator (PBI), co-creating collaborative learning spaces for psychologists, practitioners, and leaders.

Her work blends evidence-based psychology with lived experience, helping organisations design work that is productive and human.

Series Note

This is the third post in The Human Shortcut Series, exploring how cognitive shortcuts shape wellbeing, communication, and performance at work.