Influencing AV - Dr. Franziska Frank

Question 1

What do more people die from?

Plane crashes

Car crashes

Please select an answer for Question 1

Question 2

What do more people die from?

Car crashes

Cancer of the intestine

Please select an answer for Question 2

This is an example of the Availability Bias

That which we have more available in our brains is seen as more likely. So since we have many pictures of car crashes from media in our brain, we do not have one of piles of corpses in hospitals dying from intestinal cancer. That is why we get it wrong, despite the number being very clear: There are many more cases of death by intestinal cancer than by car accidents! Here are the numbers:

For Germany in 2025:

Number of aircraft fatalities: 25
Car accident fatalities: approx. 2,810
Colon cancer: approx. 24,100

For the USA in 2025:

Number of aircraft fatalities: 375
Car accident fatalities: approx. 40,000
Colon cancer: approx. 52,900

This is an example of the Availability Bias

Sources:

Aviation Safety Network
auto-motor-und-sport.de
NHTSA
Tagesspiegel
American Cancer Society

Some of these questions may seem strange and not even fitting - but they make an important point which you will see later.

Question 3

How high is your likelihood of dying before the age of 70?

Question 4

If a random word is taken from an English text, is it more likely that the word starts with 'R', or that 'R' is the third letter in that word?

a) The word starts with 'R'

b) The third letter of the word is 'R'

Please select an answer before continuing

Question 5

"Steve is very shy and withdrawn, invariably helpful but with little interest in people or in the world of reality. A meek and tidy soul, he has a need for order and structure, and a passion for detail."

Is Steve more likely to be a librarian or a farmer?

Librarian

Farmer

Please select an answer before continuing

Question 6

How high is your likelihood of dying before 70 of:

Cancer

Heart Disease

Car Accident

Stroke

Total: 0%

Question 4: If a random word is taken from an English text, is it more likely that the word starts with 'R', or that 'R' is the third letter in that word?

Question 5: Is Steve more likely to be a librarian or a farmer?

Comparison of Your Answers

In Question 3, you estimated your overall likelihood of dying before 70 as: %

In Question 6, when you broke it down by causes, your total was: %

Difference: %

So let me ask you first: which number should be higher? Dying before 70 or dying of 4 causes before 70? Clearly the first one, since we can be hanged, fall out of a window, be shot or die of many other diseases. This is an example of the vividness bias. Asking for specific ways of dying makes them very vivid in our brain and increases the probability that we attach to these ways.

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