How do we perceive risk?
Project and article by Ali Grant and Louise Skajem
There is always a difference between the risk we perceive and the actual risk presented by any situation, object, or topic. The risk of nuclear power is a particular example whereby for many people the perceived risk it presents is substantially higher than the actual risk posed as judged by experts. This unfairly extreme risk perception of nuclear prevents it being used as the vital tool against climate change that it needs to be.
We asked some individuals to rank a set of images from most to least ‘risky’. It was left up to each person to decide what risks each image posed. We then discussed with each person what risks they saw in the photo, and how risky they found them to be. Significant disparities on ranking, opinions and rationale were found.
One notable insight was when participants were unsure about some risks they would use wording such as “perhaps”, “I think”, and “I’ve heard” — whereas wording used for a nuclear power disaster was definitive and relatively confident, despite their statements being largely inaccurate. Have external forces shaped these perspectives?
Personal experience had a big impact on risk perception. Perceptions of credit card fraud, or wind turbines, could be unfairly skewed as being more of a risk than may be fair due to personal experience of fraud or a general negative opinion of wind turbines. Conversely, familiarity with driving and its everyday place in our lives lessened the perceived risk substantially — with skiing almost always being perceived as being more risky despite the statistics showing the opposite (they are comparable given the major risk for both is immediate individual physical harm).
The distribution in opinion was striking. We present this quantitative breakdown in our first graph. In our second graph we thread our qualitative results together by introducing the Grant-Skajem Effect curve. We propose there are several stages in our ability to accurately perceive risk. We initially improve our risk-perception ability as we experience or spend time considering certain risks, but as this timeframe increases we will be thrown off by personal experiences and familiarity (both over- or under- estimation of risk is replaced by simply ‘deviation’ from actual risk). Finally, we propose experts are able to closer realign their risk-perception with reality following truly extensive experience and consideration. Along the way perceptions can be thrown off by exterior forces, such as exaggerated or subdued media representations of the risk.
