📣Availability Bias
Creation and development process of Availability bias Ontology
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The definitions created by ChatGPT
Give me a definition of "Availability Bias".
Availability bias is a cognitive bias that occurs when people rely on information that is readily available to them, rather than considering all relevant information when making decisions or judgments. This bias can lead individuals to overestimate the likelihood of events or scenarios that easily come to mind due to their recent occurrence, vividness, or salience in memory, while underestimating the probability of less memorable events. Availability bias can skew perceptions and lead to faulty decision-making by placing undue weight on easily recalled information, regardless of its actual statistical significance or relevance to the situation at hand.
Give me 10 example scenarios of availability bias
Sure, here are ten examples of availability bias:
Media Influence: After watching news reports of a rare but sensational crime, individuals may overestimate the prevalence of such crimes in their own community, leading to heightened fear and anxiety.
Health Concerns: People might perceive a certain illness as more common or severe if they know someone who has recently been diagnosed with it, even if the illness is statistically rare.
Investment Decisions: Investors may favor stocks or industries that have received recent media attention or have performed well in the short term, without considering the broader market trends or fundamentals.
Travel Safety: Following a highly publicized aviation accident, individuals may become overly concerned about flying, despite statistical evidence showing it to be one of the safest modes of transportation.
Product Recalls: Consumers might avoid purchasing a product that has been recalled due to safety concerns, even if the likelihood of encountering a problem is extremely low compared to other similar products.
Job Market Perceptions: Recent high-profile layoffs or reports of unemployment may lead individuals to believe that finding a job in their field is more difficult than it actually is, affecting their job search strategy and confidence.
Weather Predictions: People may perceive a weather event, such as a hurricane or blizzard, as more likely to occur if they have experienced similar events in the recent past, even if the probability remains the same.
Legal Decision-Making: Jurors might give disproportionate weight to vivid or emotionally charged evidence presented in a trial, leading to biased judgments despite the lack of strong factual support.
Restaurant Choices: Diners may be more likely to choose a restaurant that they have heard about recently through word-of-mouth or social media, rather than considering other options that may offer better quality or value.
Personal Experiences: Individuals might overestimate the prevalence of a certain type of event, such as car accidents or natural disasters, if they have personally experienced or witnessed it recently, leading to heightened perceived risk.
Consider the scenario "Media Influence" and give me a small user story from it.
User Story: Media Influence
As a concerned parent, I want to ensure the safety of my family, so I diligently follow news reports about crime in our neighborhood.
However, recently, there was extensive coverage of a burglary in our area, highlighting the alarming rise in break-ins. Feeling anxious about the security of our home, I become hyper-vigilant, constantly checking doors and windows, and insisting on installing expensive security measures.
Despite knowing that crime rates in our neighborhood are relatively low overall, the vividness of the media coverage and the fear it instills lead me to overestimate the likelihood of a burglary occurring in our home. This heightened anxiety influences my decisions and behavior, potentially leading to unnecessary expenses and stress for my family.
If you should make an ontology of the "availability bias", what classes and properties would you create?
Creating an ontology for availability bias involves defining classes to represent key concepts and properties to describe the relationships between them. Here's a basic outline:
Classes:
Bias: Represents the overarching concept of cognitive biases.
Availability Bias: Subclass of Bias, specifically representing availability bias.
Event: Represents any occurrence or situation that individuals make judgments or decisions about.
Information: Represents any data or knowledge that individuals use to make judgments or decisions.
Memory: Represents the cognitive process of storing and retrieving information.
Perception: Represents the cognitive process of interpreting sensory information.
Decision-making: Represents the cognitive process of making choices or judgments.
Properties:
hasTrigger: Describes the event or stimulus that triggers the availability bias.
resultsIn: Describes the consequences or effects of the availability bias on decision-making or perception.
isBasedOn: Describes the relationship between availability bias and the information or memories that individuals rely on.
influences: Describes the impact of availability bias on perception, memory, or decision-making.
isAssociatedWith: Describes the connection between availability bias and other cognitive biases or psychological phenomena.
hasIntensity: Describes the strength or magnitude of the availability bias in a given context.
isAffectedBy: Describes factors that influence the susceptibility to availability bias, such as media exposure or personal experiences.
isFormOf: Indicates that availability bias is a specific type or form of cognitive bias.
Example Usage:
AvailabilityBias hasTrigger "Recent media coverage of crime".
AvailabilityBias resultsIn "Overestimation of crime rates".
AvailabilityBias isBasedOn Information.
AvailabilityBias influences Decision-making.
AvailabilityBias isAssociatedWith MediaInfluence.
AvailabilityBias hasIntensity "Moderate".
AvailabilityBias isAffectedBy "Frequency of exposure to relevant information".
This ontology framework provides a structured way to define and understand availability bias and its relationships with other concepts and factors.
Competency Questions
What are the primary sources of information that tend to influence decision-making processes?
How do individuals assess the likelihood of events based on the ease with which similar instances come to mind?
In what situations do people rely heavily on memorable or vivid examples when estimating probabilities?
What factors contribute to the overestimation of the probability of events that are easily recalled?
How do individuals' perceptions of risk and probability change when exposed to frequent or recent instances of particular events?
Classes and Properties We Have Used
Our Classes:
Action: A behaviour outcome as a consequence of a decision in cognitive process.
AvailabilityBias: Subclass of Bias, specifically representing availability bias.
CognitiveProcess: Represents the general process of cognition.
CognitiveBias: Represents the overarching concept of cognitive biases.
BiasedAgent: Represents an entity that experiences the bias.
Emotion: Felt emotion, sensation by an agent.
Our Properties:
isAffectedBy: Describes the relationship between a cognitive bias and an individual on the base of influence.
isBasedOn: Describes the relationship between availability bias and the information that individuals rely on.
creates: Affiliates observartion and the outcome of this observation action
influences: An entity having and effect on the other entity
leadsTo: Connects emotion to the leaded action
Chosen Framester Frames
This frame contains general words for Individuals, i.e. humans. The Person is conceived of as independent of other specific individuals with whom they have relationships and independent of their participation in any particular activity. They may have an Age, Descriptor, Origin, Persistent_characteristic, or Ethnicity. A man from Phoenix was shot yesterday. She gave birth to a screaming baby yesterday. I study 16-year-old female adolescents. I am dating an African-American man. She comforted the terrified child. I always thought of him as a stupid man.
A Cognizer knows or comes to know some piece of Information about a Topic. In this frame, many LUs encode a specific Means_of_Gathering and/or Source, but these may also be expressed separately. Also, the big problem is that our intel about WMD's has many times been wrong. Anyone got the straight dope on this? Get the inside scoop on sprint football player Austin Wilson. CNI I know him pretty well and I have a lot of dirt on him so I can always hold him over a barrel. What's the info about the new scanner chip?
Used Content ODPs
Experience and Observation (http://ontologydesignpatterns.org/wiki/Submissions:Experience_%26_Observation)
To represent the epistemological "missing link" between a cognitive activity, e.g. the interaction with a cultural object, and any evidence of the effects this activity has on the individuals that are engaged with it; what can collectively be considered as an experience.
Other ontologies used
rdfs:subClassOf : The subject is a subclass of a class.
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