Risk Perception

Journal of Risk Research, 2004

In addition to traditional fallacies such as ad hominem, discussions of risk contain logical and argumentative fallacies that are specific to the subject-matter. Ten such fallacies are identified, that can commonly be found in public debates on risk. They are named as follows: the sheer size fallacy, the converse sheer size fallacy, the fallacy of naturalness, the ostrich's fallacy, the proof-seeking fallacy, the delay fallacy, the technocratic fallacy, the consensus fallacy, the fallacy of pricing, and the infallability fallacy. Ever since Aristotle, fallacies have had a central role in the study and teaching of logical thinking and sound reasoning. (Walton 1987) It is not difficult to find examples of traditional fallacies such as ad hominem in any major modern discussion of a controversial issue. Discussions on risk are no exception. In addition, the subject-matter of risk (like many others) seems to invite to fallacies of a more specific kind. The purpose of this short essay is to discuss ten logical and argumentative fallacies that can be found in public debates on risk. Some of these are not as rare in the scholarly and scientific literature as one might have hoped.

2008

Like most Western democracies, Australia has seen constant business complaints about the regulatory burden and the need for reform. Governments have been sympathetic to these concerns and initiated numerous enquiries into ways to reduce red tape. One, published by the Regulation Taskforce in 2006, argues that a key problem is that Australians are becoming 'risk averse'. Drawing on research into the regulatory aftermath of major disasters, this paper argues that the Taskforce's approach is over-simplistic. Risk has at least three dimensions: actuarial, social and political. Proliferation of rules and regulations in the aftermath of a major disaster can be as much, if not more, the product of political risk aversion as it is of social and actuarial assessments. 'Smart' regulation, which aims to reduce risk while avoiding an excess of rules, must address all three dimensions. The paper explores when and how there can be a 'smart' response to major disaster. Commission). Explanations for over-regulation rehearsed in this report are familiar: excessive red tape; bureaucratic 'nit-picking'; and public service empire building.

Risk Analysis, 1989

Portney reported on work in progress concerning individuals' attitudes and preferences over policies with different time patterns of reducing risks to life, or discounting of human lives saved.

2009

There is in fact much evidence to suggest that non-experts sometimes have puzzling views about risks. 4 For example, Starr first concluded that people will accept risks incurred during voluntary activities (e.g. skiing) that are about one thousand times greater than they will accept when they are involuntarily imposed upon them (e.g. food preservatives). 5 This conclusion inspired research leading to the classic report Acceptable Risk which described how people are more afraid of the harm from something new or unfamiliar but with a low probability of occurring (e.g. nuclear meltdowns) than they are of the harm from something familiar (e.g. driving a car) with a high probability. 6 Although it is acknowledged that even experts have to make judgments about what constitutes a harmful event and what kinds of considerations need to be taken into account in identifying risks, there remains a division between what is objective or "real" for experts (e.g. scientists and risk analysts) versus what is subjective or "perceived" for nonexperts. Slovic et al, for instance, compared the responses from two groups on the relative risks of 30 activities and technologies. 7 One group was composed of 15 national experts on risk assessment while the other group was composed of 40 members of the U.S. League of Women Voters. The disparities found between the two groups were significant. The study's authors explain that "[t]he experts' mean judgments were so closely related to the statistical or calculated frequencies that it seems reasonable to conclude that they viewed the risk of an activity or technology as synonymous with its annual fatalities." 8 The experts ranked nuclear power 20 th while the League of Women Voters ranked it as the number one risk. While the experts put X-rays at number 7 in

Risk Analysis, 2004

Risk Analysis, 2020

This article is one piece in a series of article that reflect on advances in ideas about risk made by social science over the past 40 years and more. It differs from the other articles: its focus is not on specific advances themselves, but rather on how those advances were received and were encouraged or discouraged by the natural science and technical members of the risk community. Thus, the principal goal of this article is to provide some context for the other articlers in this series. Those articles describe work and intellectual developments that consider human responses to particular sorts of issues, concerns, and needs that relate to risk. The framing of this work was partly driven and shaped by natural science and engineering communities. It is illuminating to reflect on how these technical communities viewed the social science developments and on the perspectives they brought to the framing of issues and concerns. Their views are described in three minihistories of risk developments pertaining to nuclear accidents, high level radioactive waste disposal, and toxic chemicals. After considering common themes among the stories, the article considers characteristics of expert communities and their implications. It then concludes with discussions of its secondary goals, (i) a look at some opportunities for future social science studies relating to risk, (ii) a consideration of the extent to which risk analysis and broader considerations of risk can be considered a truly interdisciplinary field rather than a loose assemblage of perspectives.

1992

The best check on the preposterous claims of crisis rhetoric is an appreciation of the nature of risk analysis and how it functions in argumentation. The use of risk analysis is common in policy debate. While the stock issues paradigm focused the debate exclusively on the affirmative case, the advent of policy systems analysis has transformed debate into an w,aluation of competing policy systems. Unfortunately, the illusion of objectivity masks several serious problems with risk analysis as it is presently used in academic debate. Risk analysis artificially assigns probability to arguments and overvalues arguments with large impacts. Four suggestions can dramatically improve the use of risk analysis in policy debate: (1) some risks are so trivial that they are not meaningful; (2) the increment of risk must be considered; (3) debaters must not become enslaved to large impacts; and (4) debaters must rehabilitate the importance of uniqueness arguments in debate. (Twenty-one notes are included.) (RS)

1987