- Photo
- —
- Name
- —
- Field
- Cognitive psychology
- Year
- 1974
- Lead author
- Amos Tversky
- Core idea
- We use mental shortcuts—like representativeness and availability—that systematically warp our judgments under uncertainty.
- Why it hooked me
- Feels like someone ran controlled experiments on every hot take in a group chat.
- Best for
- Catching yourself (and other people) making very confident, very wrong predictions.
- Length feel
- Dense classic article, but the examples keep it surprisingly readable.
- Vibe
- Dry wit disguised as lab data; quietly roasting human intuition.
- Nerdy flex
- “This is pure availability bias” is my version of small talk at work.