We will focus here on the estimates of Moslem
and Jewish people because of our a priori
hypothesis that availability effects caused by
televised coverage of Israel in the U.S. had
skewed the perception of this ratio. While our
sample’s median estimate of the number of
Jewish people (20 million) was quite close to
the actual figure of 18 million according to the
1990 Universal Almanac, the number of estimated
Moslems—a mean of 10 million—was startlingly
low (817 million is the estimate in the Universal
Almanac). For each participant in our study, we
calculated the ratio of the Moslem to Jewish
estimates to see how many students were aware
of the fact that the number of Moslems is an
order of magnitude larger (the actual estimated
ratio is approximately 33:1 according to the
World Almanac; 45:1 according to the Universal