These days, it’s tough to know what to worry about. Resistant bacteria? Cancer? Global warming?
As it turns out, you’re not going to get any extra help from your brain. Although the human brain is well adapted to respond to risk, it’s not so skilled at sorting out which modern risks to worry about. The current issue of Psychology Today explains why in its article “10 Ways We Get the Odds Wrong.”
“Our biases reflect the choices that kept our ancestors alive. But we have yet to evolve similarly effective responses to statistics, media coverage, and fear-mongering politicians….Though emotions are themselves critical to making rational decisions, they were designed for a world in which dangers took the form of predators, not pollutants.”
Part of the problem is that our emotions have evolved to help our brains make “lightning fast” assessments about risk before we have a chance to think. Things that have been around awhile — snakes and spiders, for instance, scare us. But bigger risks, such as fast driving, don’t trigger the same instinctive response. “Our emotions push us to make snap judgments that once were sensible — but may not be anymore,” the author, Maia Szalavitz, writes.
Fear also strengthens memory, the magazine reports. So catastrophes like plane crashes and terrorist attacks stay with us. “As a result, we overestimate the odds of dreadful but infrequent events and underestimate how risky ordinary events are,” the author writes.
The problem is, this leads to bad decisions. The magazine notes that after Sept. 11, 1.4 million people changed their travel plans to avoid flying, choosing to drive instead. Driving is far more dangerous. The decision caused roughly 1,000 additional auto fatalities, the magazine reports.
The magazine details several other fascinating examples of how we get risk wrong. We underestimate things that creep up on us, which helps explain why we fear cancer more than heart disease. Having control gives us a false sense of calm, which explains why we worry about pesticides on our foods, even as we use weed killer in our own yards.
And notably, we seem to need a constant level of risk in our lives, which leads to “risk compensation” and explains why people end up speeding once they put a seatbelt on.
To read the full article, click here.
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22 Comments
You link to an article entitled, “10 Ways We Get the Odds Wrong,” yet the article only lists 2 and then ends abruptly. Is this just a way to get us to subscribe to Psychology Today in order to read the rest?
For a very good summary of risk assessment written 5 years ago by a psychologist, please see Daniel Gilbert’s article:
http://richarddawkins.net/article,775,If-only-gay-sex-caused-global-warming,Daniel-Gilbert-LATimescom
From TPP — Since this first appeared, Psychology Today has made the article free. So click away.
— Dave HarrisI have read a number of articles postulating that people have made an irrational mistake by fearing cancer more than heart disease given the greater prevalence of deaths by heart disease. However, for anyone who has watched loved ones die of both cancer and heart disease, it is the potentially debilitating nature of death by cancer, as compared with the sometimes less obvious and slower debilitations resulting from heart disease that make death from cancer a much scarier prospect.
— OZWe not only are not going to get any help from the brain, but also from the media. The media seems to believe that “news” means “everyone panic!”. Most people are reactive and only deal with what is directly in front of them. This is why we have pollution, garbage in the streets, VD, obesity, and cancer in chain smokers. Those people only care about today. No amount of media booga booga is going to straighten them out. Then there are people who can understand long term risks. They’re the ones who pay their mortgage off, save for their kids’ college tuition, and floss their teeth. Those folks get barraged with the same media fearmongering that the inattentive do. No one is helped and the best thing to do is turn off the TV set.
— G.H.WaiteI don’t know if I agree with all the authors’ explanations for faulty risk assessments, but they certainly are out there in spades.
I think in most cases it is has more to do with lack of education and the discipline needed to make logical decisions. However, there are plenty of well-educated people who have fears that are disproportionate to actual risk.
One of my favorite lines to someone who expresses fear of dying on a roller coaster is, “Only five people out of the ten million riders this summer died.” Of course, this is false; no one died. Usually the person laughs, and comes to realize how ungrounded his/her fear really is.
How can we explain a three hundred pound woman on TV ranting and raving about a virus research facility being built down the street? She of course would be much better served by fearing Big Macs and cholesterol, not laboratory viruses, from which no one ever gets sick.
Fear of air but not car travel is another common example of irrational risk assessment.
— jackFear of old enemies, such as outsiders, people who do not give the appearance of being loyal, sex out of wedlock etc… it what the GOP is all about.
The real problems of todays world, such as nuclear proliferation, climate change, war and overpopulation do not bother them.
— riniAs someone who studied decision analysis in grad school, I have some appreciation for risk assessment.
Many are convinced that they will die in a plane crash. Many are also sure that they have a shot at winning Powerball.
Play the odds - get on the plane and forget about getting rich with Powerball.
— sharonIt all depends on the perception of risk. Risk analysts consider risk to be the product of the probability of an event and the consequences of the event. For economic disasters, the consequences are enumerated in dollars. For mortality, the obvious endpoint is death. But for individuals, there are so many other factors that enter into the perception of risk.
Events resulting in severe consequences for large groups but having low probability are considered to be riskier than small consequence high probability events. The risk of 10,000 people dying at an event having a probability of .01% per year is usually perceived to be much larger than the risk of one person dying per year. Math has nothing to do with it. It is an emotional response to large consequence events.
People also are averse to risks imposed on them, as opposed to voluntarily assumed risks. People are averse to risks imposed on young children compared to the same risks imposed on adults. While statistically all deaths are the same, emotionally the type of death (is there much suffering prior to death) matters.
Risk perception is more than a mathematical calculation. Risk management requires that risk perception be properly recognized.
Science Editor
— SciEdhttp://www.polijam.com
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Seriously, NY Times? You’re recycling content from pop-psychology magazines now? Get a grip. When can we expect some REAL, hard-hitting journalism instead of this pre-digested crap?
TPP–can you please stick to interpreting research from REAL, peer-reviewed scientific journals, not magazines featuring naked people on the cover (like this month’s issue of Psychology Today http://www.psychologytoday.com/pto/issue_current.html)
From TPP — Thanks for your comments. I often report data from peer-reviewed scientific journals but I’ve learned a long time ago that if the medical literature is my only source of information, I will miss a lot. My goal on the Well blog is to alert readers to a variety of information on a variety of topics, some more weighty than others. I think the basic point this article makes, that our brains have evolved to evaluate risk in a way that is out of sync with modern times, is quite interesting. As much as I’ve read on the topic, I haven’t read it quite this way before. So I felt like it was worth calling to the attention of readers who may not read the magazine.
— BettyFor the hospital I work in, our risk program initially looks at the severity of the incident, and how often it occurs, to arrive at and initial determination of how much of a problem it is. We sometimes add a third dimension of the number of patients or people this could apply to for a denominator to establish a rate of occurence. We only add the fourth dimension of cost to the matrix when we’ve identified the worst problems and are trying to arrive at a financial decision, which is really kind of rare since we’remore concerned about doing the right thing than making a buck, at least in the Quality Department.
Of course people are more adverse to risks imposed on young children than themselves; children are our investment in immortality. As a species, we primarily exist for our children; no children, no reason for existance.
— Michael D. HoustDoes anyone know where you can find a risk assessment quiz to distribute? I’ve encountered this problem quite a few times. I would like to find a way of measuring how different people respond to catastrophic but rare risk as compared to mild but common risk. For example, can you measure how people compare the risk of an airplane crash, which is deadly but rare, as opposed to a car crash, which is less deadly but more common?
— ChrisBetty said: “Seriously, NY Times? You’re recycling content from pop-psychology magazines now? Get a grip.”
I don’t agree with that at all. Tara’s summary provides useful insight and not everything of value (especially if you find psychology interesting) has to be double blind, peer review, whatever.
As far as the naked woman on the cover, big deal? They need to sell magazines and get people to pay attention and take a look (Tara, how about going in that direction for a future article..). If it increases circulation good for them!
http://www.janets.com
— JanetI’m afraid of nearly everything. Sure, the chances of cancer and crashes are small. But something or a combination of things is eventually going to kill me. I feel I must avoid anything that poses any risk.
— Afraid“The problem is, this leads to bad decisions. The magazine notes that after Sept. 11, 1.4 million people changed their travel plans to avoid flying, choosing to drive instead. Driving is far more dangerous. The decision caused roughly 1,000 additional auto fatalities, the magazine reports.”
Are they kidding? After four jetliners were hijacked by Arab terrorists, avoiding air travel in the after math was a bad decision? This is a mindless statement. These people were extemely rational, for several reasons:
1. Additional hijackings were in fact planned and even if they were not it is logical to assume that where there is smoke there is fire.
2. Copy cat crimes are very common in the aftermath of a high profile crime. Foreign as well as domestic terrorists, and also mentally ill suicidal people might have tried to emulate the “successful” 9/11 attack.
3. The terrorists easily could have switched attack mode from hijacking to using ground to air shoulder fired missiles after 9/11.
4. It was clearly prudent for the public to put off air travel until the government investigated the risk and devised improved security.
5. The authors concluded that the 1.4 million people who avoided air travel in the aftermath made a bad decision. What about the other people who decided to fly in the aftermath of 9/11? Are these people supposed to be smart or geniuses or brave, defiant Americans. C’mon. I believe the people who went a flying right after 9/11 were the ones who made a bad decision. This would be like right after the sinking of the Titanic, the Lusitania or the Hindenberg disaster, people rushing out to get tickets on the next ocean liner across the Atlantic or to book the next flight of a hydrogen filled lighter than air aircraft (even more exciting during a thunderstorm with lots of lightening.
While in theory there may be a higher risk statistically to driving one’s car than taking a plane, but people feel far more in control of their lives in their own cars, and certainly the risk of being a victim of terror approaches zero driving your own car on an interstate.
I am very suspicious about the statistic that the decision caused roughly a thousand additional auto fatalities. I bet this statement was based on a projection of the national auto accident incidences to the additional number of drivers hitting the road as a result of avoiding air travel. I bet they never had evidence that of those people who were killed in auto accidents after 9/11, these 1000 people were people who chose to drive rather than fly. Interstate auto travel on divided highways I believe have far lower accident rates than local driving, including commuting. Given the accident rate on communter airlines, personally I’d rather drive than be on some small prop plane with 10-20 other people.
— RickAnalystWhile the article being reported in this blog is in a popular press source, the basic premise has a long and prestigious pedigree. The 2002 Nobel Prize in economics, for example, went to Daniel Kahneman (and Vernon Smith, for unrelated work). Kahneman and the late Amos Tversky are PSYCHOLOGISTS who have done pathbreaking work on human judgment, including work on “heuristics and biases.”
Heuristics are simple rules of thumb that our brains use to get very quick answers to very tough questions. For example, we judge how probable something is in part by how available that event is in our memory–so we overestimate the probability of highly salient events like airplane crashes or terrorist attacks.
We judge how likely something is to be part of a group by how representative it is of the group–and so we assume something is wrong if an even-odds event happens several times in a row, because having, say, a basketball player make four shots in a row isn’t representative of his shooting percentage. (There is no statistical evidence for the “hot hand” in professional basketball.)
When we try to judge some quantity that we don’t really know, we let ourselves start with some base value and adjust inadequately up or down from there, so we let random (or intentionally provided) irrelevant cues in the environment affect our willingness to pay for some product, or the amount of punitive damages we award in a lawsuit. (Cass Sunstein et al’s book, _Punitive Damages_, may be the scariest thing I’ve ever read.)
This research is called “heuristics and biases,” because these mental shortcuts lead us to make systematic errors in judgment. However, behavioral economists have increasingly come to recognize that these heuristics provide an effective mental machinery that let us conserve very scarce cognitive resources, and let us function in real time. However, if we understand the ways in which these shortcuts will let us down, we can hope to use our cognition to over-ride the more biased judgments, or to design environments that are less prone to mis-judgment in the first place.
I’m not about to subscribe to this magazine, so I don’t know how good a job they’ve done in translating this academic research for a wider audience. But I’m glad to see the basic ideas getting some attention in the world outside my classroom.
— StephenIt seems clear from this article and the posts that there’s much confusion about, and misunderstanding of, the concept of risk assessment.
Risk assessment is only carried out for whole populations - not for individuals within those populations. For example, one can predict fairly accurately on the basis of past trends how many North American women will be diagnosed in the coming year with breast cancer. One cannot however take a given woman and predict her chance of contracting breast cancer this coming year. It’s impossible because women, unlike identical coins or dice, vary significantly from individual to individual and their circumstances vary significantly. You can’t measure or predict individual risk and if you can’t measure a putatively quantifiable variable then its a pseudo variable - it doesn’t exist.
Risk analysis has never applied to individual human beings, not to an individual Neolithic ancestor or to any other individual, AND IT NEVER WILL - until we have a population of human clones living identical lives in identical circumstances, just like a collection of identical coins.
— Chris Colenso-DunneIt’s all in the 24/7 news cycle. Fear and manipulation of statistics to skew the story. Do the Math. In my job, I have to drive in excess of 180 miles round trip per day. Chances of getting into an accident are enormous. As a result, I’ve researched the deadliest days on the road. I listen to two cycles of traffic reports before heading out or coming back. If I can I take the southern most route which takes a few minutes longer but has far fewer cars on the road. I always have my tires inflated to the right air pressure. And I take the roads with fewer trucks. It’s not the trucks that are the problem, but the people who try and dance in and out of lanes who create the problem. Another topic of fear. Chances of getting killed by a total stranger are far less than getting killed by someone you know: a family member, coworker, etc. Yet the ‘big story’ is the front page murder. Same with disease, including obesity. We have DNA precursors, a family history with rich data about what has happened to our clan before. Yet when you’re forced to change insurance carriers and your Primary Care Physician is no longer part of the new insurers HMO plan, and you try and extract, and collate all your medical data, from one physician to give to another, good luck. So what happens? Same tests. New doctor. Fresh eyes. More expense. More inefficiency. Take ownership people. Face your fear. Don’t let some stranger (journalist, doctor, or politician) get a leg up on your own life. PS The link allowed me to see the full article. And if you all take the test at the end of the article you’d be surprised at some if not all of the results.
— Fear#16 Fear, I think I can help you out a little on your trip to work–if you can afford the gas.
1. Try to get a Hummer H2 (with $100 per barrel oil you might be able to pick up a low mileage one for a good price)–preferably in black with added red and silver reflectors on the rear and the large bumper protector on the front. Join the National Rifle Association and prominently put the member stickers on your rear and both side windows. Most vehicles other than semis will try to avoid being in your path or harassing you.
2. Try to keep at least 2 seconds (or one car length for each 10 miles per hour) behind the car or truck in front of you. Keep your headlights on at all times. Slow down in fog and heavy rain, snow, sleet.
3. Wear you shoulder harness or if you are really that concerned, have a racing should harness installed and roll cage. NASCAR racers survive collisions at over 150 mph so I am sure you will be OK. You should be able to survive just about anything except a head on collision with a semi above 30 miles per hour–so avoid the outer lane on two way undivided highways. Just be sure to get AAA gold coverage and carry your cell phone.
— RickAnalystIts true that many people have fears that are irrational, but that doesn’t make them less real to the person experiencing them. I know the statistics about flying v. driving, but I am still afraid to fly. I can tell you exactly why, however.
1. I have control when I am driving, and I trust myself more than anyone else (I do get a bit nervous riding in the car with someone else driving, depending on how much I know/trust them).
2. I have to drive somewhere nearly every day. I cannot afford to be afraid to drive, but more importantly the routine-ness of it gives me comfort. Getting on a plane, however, is an occassional event and I often wonder if I might have drawn the short straw, so to speak.
I do not let my fears control me or stop me from doing anything, I just may be a little uncomfortable (or have to take a mild sedative to help) but I can understand how people do let fear control them.
More on topic, people fear things that are out of their control more than things they can, but often don’t, do something about. If I’m going to die from eating 3 double bacon cheeseburgers a day, at least I can only blame myself (or sue the fast food industry, but that’s another article altogether).
— CrystalAs an doctor-lawyer in Emergency Medicine, I keep very current with the peer-reviewed literature, but find I must needs a strong skepticism as there are tremendous biases in that genre. Throw in the problems of whether the findings actually apply to an individual and an article in the NYT written for the layperson AND for doctors is extremely useful. Betty probably is financially benefiting somehow for her opinion.
— David DavisThere’s a good chapter of why we underestimate risk in NYT very own Freakonomics by Dubner and Levitt. Risk = Hazard + Outrage. If outrage for an event is high and actual hazard is low we tend to overestimate risk. If actual hazard is high and outrage is low we tend to underestimate risk.
— EdwinRalph Nader said essentially the same thing decades ago, that people are much better at detecting, for example, moving objects and threats than they are at abstract reasoning to detect threats/risks.
— janetI am aware of the relative greater risk of a MVA versus a plane crash; however, I personally would like there to be something left for my heirs to bury, and think that more likely in a MVA.
Regarding an inability to assess risk in an individual, tell that to women who have elected mastectomy in order to circumvent a high risk of breast cancer due to high family history of cancer and examination of their personal genetic makeup.
— janet