Why we make decisions or judgements based on what we can remember easily

By behavioural psychologists Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky in 1973. In their classic experiment, they asked people to listen to a list of names and then recall whether there were more men or women on the list. Some people in the experiment were read a list of famous men and less famous women, while others were read the opposite. Afterwards, when quizzed by the researchers, individuals were more likely to say that there were more of the gender from the group with more famous names. Later researchers have linked this effect to how easily people could retrieve information: we tend to over-rely on what we can remember easily when coming to decisions or judgements.

Let’s invent Trevor. His angry email arrives at 9.07. By 9.20, the product strategy has changed. Never mind the 4,000 customers who quietly completed the task. Trevor used capital letters. Trevor is now the market.

Memory is not a database; it is a publicist. It promotes the famous, recent, emotional and weird. That is why one dramatic cyberattack can dominate a risk meeting while the dreary everyday failures—reused passwords, misdirected attachments, forgotten permissions—wait outside without a press officer. It is why everyone wants to copy the viral campaign and nobody remembers the effective, unglamorous work that paid the bills. Meetings make this worse because the first vivid anecdote gives the room a plot. “A prospect told me yesterday…” beats a base rate still trapped in a spreadsheet. The story has a face, a voice and perhaps an amusing swear word. The distribution has twelve tabs and grey gridlines. Guess which one wins.

Anecdotes still matter. Numbers tell us what is common; stories help us understand what it feels like. The stupidity begins when vividness is mistaken for frequency. So put the trend beside the tale. Sample calls instead of playing the best one. Record ordinary outcomes, not only disasters and miracles. Before reorganising the roadmap around Trevor, ask whether he is memorable because he represents thousands—or because nobody else writes subject lines saying “ABSOLUTE SHAMBLES”.