Apparently, humans are extremely poor sources of reliable information. Rather than the reasoned, rational decision-makers we believe ourselves to be, we really rely on short-cuts and presumptions for most of our judgments. Or so behavioral psychologists have come to believe.
Being scientists, these behavioral psychologists had to come up with a fancy term for this phenomenon. They call these short-cuts “heuristics,” and the specific one I want to point out today is the “availability heuristic.”
The idea of the availability heuristic is that humans (and if you are reading this column, that’s probably you) tend to use the most immediate examples that come to mind when making a judgment. So examples that are recent (newer in our minds) or more frequently repeated tend to carry the heaviest weight in our perceptions and thus our decisions.
For instance, a human may hear news reports about shootings and develop an unrealistic perception of the likelihood of being shot. So that person may work to avoid places and situations where they believe they are likely to be victims of a shooting. But she may still drive to work every day (accidents are more than 14 times more likely to kill you than a gun) or eat those French fries (heart disease is 64 times more likely to kill you). Did you know you are more likely to be killed by hot tap water than a plane crash? Yet, I bet you still turn on the faucet.
If we are using the availability heuristic to understand the lives of people with intellectual disabilities, we run the risk of making the assumption that the examples we can readily call to mind are representative. We use the examples we’ve experienced or heard about as the basis of our knowledge. Most examples of the lifestyles of people with intellectual disabilities from our recent and distant past is limiting, segregated or simply absent.
There is a significant danger in this for people with intellectual disabilities. When potential employers only have examples of workers with intellectual disabilities as janitors, this limits a whole range of employment opportunities. Examples of people with intellectual disabilities participating in specialized programs or segregated groups are still far more prevalent for most people than are examples of people with intellectual disabilities participating in clubs and activities with non-disabled individuals.
So forget everything you know. Wipe your mind clear of the examples of group homes and segregated programs. While for the near future there may be a place for these in some situations (also open for debate), their weight in our availability heuristics makes them seem more likely or more desirable than the truly more attractive option where people with intellectual disabilities work in the cubicle next to you, play on your community softball team and live in the apartment upstairs.
Why does this matter? Because humans also have a status quo bias. And the status quo isn’t working for all of us.
Tara Kiene is president and CEO of Community Connections, Inc.
