Accessibility and availability

Accessibility – Construct accessibility is the readiness with which a stored construct is utilized in information processing; that is, construct accessibility is concerned with stored constructs, their utilization in information processing, and the likelihood of such utilization.

Availability traditionally refers to whether or not a construct is stored in memory (Bruner, 1957). Recently, there has been an increasing tendency to use the term accessibility and availability interchangeably. Some overlap in the application of these terms was introduced in Tversky & Kahnemanīs (1973) description of the availability heuristic, where availability referred to the ease of retrieving construct instances. In the availability heuristic, however, availability also referred to the ease of constructing instances of novel classes and events, which is distinct from the traditional meaning of accessibility (see Higgins & King, 1981).

See also: availability heuristic, cognition, social cognition

Literature: Bruner (1957), Higgins & King (1981), Tversky & Kahneman (1973)

Entry by: Eric Igou

June 11, 1999
Direct questions and comments to: Glossary master