Final answer:
Most people overestimate the likelihood of dramatic causes of death such as earthquakes or shark attacks because these events are overrepresented in media and memorable, leading to a cognitive bias known as the availability heuristic.
Step-by-step explanation:
Most people rate dramatic causes of death, such as earthquakes or shark attacks, as (A) more likely than they actually are. This phenomenon can be attributed to the availability heuristic, which is a mental shortcut that relies on immediate examples that come to a person's mind when evaluating a specific topic, concept, method, or decision. Dramatic and vivid events like earthquakes, shark attacks, and criminal attacks tend to be overrepresented in media and are often more memorable, which leads people to overestimate their likelihood. While catastrophic events do occur and can have devastating effects, as seen in historical earthquakes and mass extinctions, the actual probability of an individual dying from such events is relatively low.
For example, while we remember the significant loss of life from earthquakes such as Haiti in 2010 or Sumatra in 2004, these dramatic events are not as common as more mundane, yet fatal occurrences. Moreover, engineers are continuously working on ways to protect people and property from such disasters, mitigating their impacts. Despite this, because major catastrophes make strong impressions on our minds, most individuals still mistakenly perceive them as more frequent than statistical realities suggest.