1. Availability: Ease of amount of recall? The study of Schwarz et al. (1991) It has been shown that people overestimate the frequency of men resp. women if the names of one sex, but not the other, were very famous and thus highly available (Tversky and Kahneman, 1973); Availability was measured by how many names participants were able to recall.Tversky and Kahneman, 1973 Availabilityrecall Contributor© POSbase 2003

2. There are two ways how to explain this finding: (1)The number of famous names was overestimated because participants recall more of them (how Tversky & Kahneman measured availability). (2)The number of famous names was overestimated because participants recall them more easily (how Tversky & Kahneman defined availability). Availability: Ease of amount of recall? © POSbase 2003

3. Experiment: The participants had to list either six or twelve episodes from their own lifes in which they were self-assertive. It is easier to recall six such behaviors, but amount of recall is higher with when twelve such behaviors can be listed. Afterwards, they had to rate their self- assertiveness. Availability: Ease of amount of recall? © POSbase 2003

4. Hypothesis: (1)If participants use the amount of recall as information, they are expected to feel themselves more assertive after recalling twelve rather than six self-assertive episodes. (2)If participants use the ease of recall as information, they are expected to feel themselves more assertive after recalling six rather than twelve self-assertive episodes. Availability: Ease of amount of recall? © POSbase 2003

5. Availability: Ease of amount of recall? © POSbase 2003

6. The results show clearly that participants use ease of recall as information: They judged themseves to be more assertive after recalling six rather than twelve self-assertive behaviors. Availability: Ease of amount of recall? © POSbase 2003

7. In another condition, participants were asked to list either six or twelve episodes from their own lifes in which they behaved unassertive. If participants again use ease of recall, they are expected to rate themselves as being more assertive after recalling twelve rather than six unassertive behaviors. Availability: Ease of amount of recall? © POSbase 2003 In other words: If it is so easy to recall six unassertive behaviors, I can‘t be too assertive after all; and if it is so difficult to recall twelve unassertive behaviors, I must be quite assertive!

8. Availability: Ease of amount of recall? © POSbase 2003

9. Again, participants use ease of recall as information when judging self-assertiveness. In order to examine the underlying processes, Schwarz et al. (1991) replicated the former experiment, but played meditation music in the background. Availability: Ease of amount of recall? © POSbase 2003 In one condition, participants were told that the music facilitates the recall of assertive behaviors, whereas the other participants were told that music facilitates the recall of unassertive behaviors.

10. Predictions: Participants whose subjective experience contradicted the alleged side effect of the music would consider this experience particularly diagnostic and would use it in their self-assessment, whereas participants whose experience was in line with the alleged side effect of music would discount the experience and use amount of recall instead. If participants did not use ease of recall as information, diagnosticity of experienced ease would not change self-assessments. Availability: Ease of amount of recall? © POSbase 2003

11. For example, if participants had to recall six assertive behaviors and were told that music facilitates the recall of assertive behaviors, they think that ease of recall is due to music and discount the experience; for them, experienced ease is not diagnostic as information for the judgment of assertiveness. Availability: Ease of amount of recall? © POSbase 2003

12. However, if they had to recall six assertive behaviors and were told that music facilitates the recall of unassertive behavior, ease of recall becomes highly diagnostic because the expectation that music facilitates unassertive behaviors contradicts the experience of ease of recalling assertive behaviors. Availability: Ease of amount of recall? © POSbase 2003

13. Availability: Ease of amount of recall? Diagnosticity of Ease of Recall LowHigh © POSbase 2003

14. When diagnosticity of experienced ease of recall was high, participants relied on ease of recall, as in the former study. However, if diagnosticity of experienced ease of recall was low, participants relied on amount of recall. The authors interpreted this pattern of findings as evidence that ease of recall, and not some other information, causes variations in assertiveness ratings. Availability: Ease of amount of recall? © POSbase 2003

15. Besides diagnosticity of recall, other variables have been found that moderate the effects of experienced ease of recall on judgments:  Processing motivation (Rothman & Schwarz, 1998);Rothman & Schwarz, 1998  Direct access to information in memory (Haddock et al., 1999);Haddock et al., 1999  Naïve theories about the meaning of experienced ease of recall (Winkielman & Schwarz, 2001). Availability: Ease of amount of recall? © POSbase 2003

16. Ease of recall has been shown to influence several types of variables:  Frequency estimates (Wänke et al., 1995)  Judgments of risk (Grayson & Schwarz, 1998; Rothman & Schwarz, 1998)  Attitudes toward a product (Wänke, Bohner, & Jurkowitsch, 1997)  Debiasing hindsight (Sanna, Schwarz, & Stocker, 2001). Availability: Ease of amount of recall? © POSbase 2003