We tend to judge the likelihood and significance of things based on how easily they come to mind. The more “available” a piece of information is to us, the more important it seems. The result is that we give greater weight to information we learned recently because a news article you read last night comes to mind easier than a science class you took years ago. It’s too much work to try to comb through every piece of information that might be in our heads.

Tania Lombrozo looks at research published Monday showing people's factual judgment of how much danger a child is in while a parent is away varies according to the extent of their moral outrage.