The availability heuristic

The availability heuristic is a mental shortcut that people use to judge the likelihood of events based on how easily examples come to mind. For instance, if you can quickly recall several news stories about airplane crashes, you might overestimate the danger of flying, even if statistically it's very safe. This cognitive bias occurs because we tend to rely on immediate examples from our memory rather than considering all relevant information. As a result, our perceptions of risk and probability can be skewed by recent or vivid experiences, rather than by actual statistics.