Human judgment dictates that physical consequences of hazards are objective, however perceptions of risks associated with those hazards are highly subjective and as a result risk has been defined in a number of ways. Risk can be viewed as the probability and/or seriousness of undesired consequences or the variance of all consequences about their mean.
Research into this topic has been tackled descriptively by psychologists and has looked at why people take risks, the factors that affect their perception or appraisal, their propensity to take risks and the best techniques for risk communication.Slovic (1987) identified three risk appraisal factors, basic dimensions connected with the perception of risk. The first is "Dread Risk" characterised by a perceived lack of control, catastrophic potential, fatal consequences and the unbalanced distribution of risks and benefits. This dimension is closely related to the general public's perception of risks for example associated with nuclear power stations. The second risk appraisal factor is "Unknown risks". These are hazards for which the risks are as yet unknown and delayed in their expression of harm.
For example, the risks associated with mobile phones. The final risk appraisal factor relates to how widespread the effects are of a risk where the greater the number of people exposed to a threat from the risk the greater the perception. Risk perception can be distorted depending on the assessor of the risk. However research has illustrated that both lay people and expert's assessment of risk involve human judgement and are subjective however experts perception are viewed as more objective.Slovic (1979) concluded that lay people perception of risk are related to more so to 'Dread Risk' and how widespread it effects, showing a high correlation of factors 1 and 3 where appraisals are made cognitively, whereas experts concentrate on the annual fatalities of the risk and make appraisals normatively looking at statistics. For example when asked to rate 30 different events in terms of risk, college students placed nuclear power as the greatest hazard.
However nationally respected risk assessors placed nuclear technology twentieth.They perceived it as less of a risk than riding a bicycle, which is an accurate objective perception of annual deaths. Sprent (1988) identified ten common distortions of risk. Two such distortions of risk are the notions that concentrated risks are worse than diffuse risks and involuntary risks are worse than voluntary risks.
Research has also found that we regard involuntary risks, such as poisoning from contaminated food as worse than voluntary risks such as smoking even though there is a much greater risk of death associated with the latter.This irony was humorously expressed by Chauncey Starr (1969) who noted that "we are loathe to let others do unto us what we happily do to ourselves! " Slovic et al (1978) investigated that concentrated risks are regarded as worse than diffuse risks even though the latter may have a much higher death toll. Participants estimated death rates from 40 hazards using the death rate from car accidents as a point of reference. Slovic found that participants overestimated deaths from infrequent causes but underestimated deaths from frequent causes.People attached higher statistical frequencies to salient hazards, such as more deaths from murder than diabetes, when in fact death rates for both of these hazards are the same. This shows how risk perception is distorted as the availability heuristic is used where people choose what comes to mind with ease in effort and accommodate is with their pre existing views.
This can also be due to the media who distort the public's perception of risk by giving rare events more widespread coverage, such as murder than suicide, when in actual fact suicide is more frequent.Zuckerman's Sensation Seeking Scale (1964) was an attempt by personality theorists to interpret physical risk taking as sensation seeking looking at individual differences. Results from a factor analysis of subscales found that high sensation seeking groups have been identified as men, multi drug users, promiscuous people, smokers and young people. Some studies have correlated sensation seeking behaviour with physiological responses and some have implicated the role of genetic factors (Telegen, 1988).An example of personality affecting risk perception is highlighted clearly in the nuclear war between America and Russia, where America was warned of threat twice by their computer technology and got ready for battle, however it was soon discovered to be a false alarm due to a chip malfunction.
Wishful thinkers such as optimists and supporters looked at this in a good light and said that they had more confidence in the system as they coped well with the fault therefore looking at it in terms of future benefits believing there was less chance for future catastrophes.Whereas pessimists and opponents of nuclear deterrents claimed that it was a threat to national security and could trigger unnecessary over reactions believing there was more chance for future catastrophes. This shows how risk perception can be distorted due to your cognitive biases such as motivations and illusions of control causing people to come to different conclusions as to whether accidents make us safer. This also demonstrated emotionality playing a role.
Lerner & Keltner (2001) found that fear and anger had opposite affects on cognitive appraisals and risk estimates.Compared with angry participants, fearful participants rated their circumstances as less under their control and less certain and made more pessimistic estimates for future risks. Non-physical risk taking has also been studied. Atkinson (1957) related risk-taking to his theory that motivation depends on desires to achieve success and to avoid failure. People who measure highly on desire to achieve success but low on desire to avoid failure are those who take the most moderate risks in skilled tasks.
Individual differences mean that some people prefer to take more low probability risks that comprise of a high chance a small success and a low chance of failure. Others prefer to take more high probability risks with the underlying rationale being that failure will be attributed to the difficulty of the task and not to a perceived lack of skill on their part. This study has been used as a model for entrepreneurship in explaining why some people will achieve great success with "all or nothing" business strategies. Liverant & Scodel (1960) investigated the effect of locus of control on propensity to take risks.They found that people with an external locus of control are more likely to opt for long shot bets than those with an internal locus of control.
Such individuals believe chance is in their favour due to luck from the past will. This explains behaviours such as placing bets on the national lottery every week despite the extremely low probability of scooping the jackpot. This however ignores that each trial is independent, known as the hot hand. Slovic (1982) highlighting the role of situation specific variables on an individual's likelihood to take risks where correlations showed no overall propensity to take risks.For example the person who faithfully places their bet on the national lottery every week despite the high probability of receiving no return on their gamble, may be completely anti-smoking and refuse to take any risks when it comes to their physical health. However MacCrimmon ; Wehrung (1990) took risk taking measures from 300 executives and found that individual differences such as age, nationality and past success correlated highly with the propensity to take risks but situation specific variables did not.
We must however, be cautious about generalizing the results of this study. It seems intuitive that personality characteristics would play a significant role in achieving top positions in professions which are characterised by a constant high degree of situational risk (for example stockbroking). The risk homeostasis theory was proposed by J Adams (1995) claiming people try to balance out the costs and benefits involved in taking risks. It was explored in relation to drivers and their propensity to take the risk of exceeding the speed limit.
Adam argues that higher speeds, are beneficial to drivers because it means that they save time but negative because speeding gains a higher risk of having an accident. The optimum speed is achieved when time travelling and the costs of an accident are equal. Changes to increase their safety such as seatbelt laws in 1980's will result in driving faster as the two costs are higher therefore the safety measure will not have the desired effect as drivers feel the seatbelt is a extra safety measure reducing accidents therefore increasing speed.The risk homeostasis theory and its documented affects on speeding have serious implications for the communication of risk as weighing up costs and benefits is carried out at an unconscious level.
Therefore simply telling people to drive more slowly will not work and measures such as punishment to speeders (changing risk) or making traffic jams more acceptable (changing time) will balance to optimum levels (Howarth 1988). When there is no conscious analysis of risk, this is known as running a risk as opposed to taken a risk.Often when running a risk we are confronted by risks that we had not considered. Saarinen (1966) found that perception of risk grows more accurate and discriminating when people have greater direct experience of specific hazards.
Obviously it is not advisable for people to experience the consequences of particular hazards in order to improve their perception of risk. Therefore in the field of accident prevention, accidents are studied, their risks are revealed and preventative action is taken to minimize their future effects.Wagenarr (1987) analysed 57 accidents at sea and found that 83% of accidents at sea occurred because there was no calculated acceptance of risk and people were taken by surprise. This study emphasizes how crucial accurate communication of risk is in the field of accident prevention.
Understanding how we perceive, take and communicate risks is an important topic especially in the light of the recent terrorist threat, posing unknown risks and possible impact of catastrophe.Slovic (1979) has clearly outlined the factors affecting risk appraisal and in addition people reliance on heuristics such as representativeness and availability, motivational factors which affect perception and prior beliefs of expectations have influenced by the way the risk can be framed. This shows that human judgement of risks is not normative due to impracticalities, however communication should be based on a normative stance providing people with factual information reducing distortion in perception.
