Many people will mix up a hazard with risk.
A hazard is “any source of potential damage, harm or adverse health effects on
something or someone under certain conditions at work.” Whereas a risk is the “chance
or probability that a person will be harmed or experience an adverse health
effect if exposed to a hazard.”
Although there is a definition for risk, there is
a difference between how much risk we think we are exposed to and how much risk
we are actually in. This is called the risk perception gap. This also expresses
that in risk situations our body takes over with the “flight or fight response.”
The Amygdala, part of the brain, is in charge of this response in the body. The
flight or fight response is the activation of two systems: the sympathetic
nervous system and the adrenal-cortical system.
Heuristic like the flight or fight response is a
judgment taken very quickly. They are
different because heuristic is “a mental shortcut that allows people to solve
problems and make judgments quickly and efficiently.” It is a form of strategies
to shorten decision making time and allow people to make these decisions
without having to stop for long periods of time to think about their next
action. Although this system sounds amazing, it can also lead to errors because
it makes it difficult to see new ideas or alternative solutions.
We use these strategies numerous times in our
everyday lives, examples of these are: whether or not to trust someone or how to
respond to someone if they start to yell at you. Another example would be, you
are driving down the road and you look in the road ahead and there is a bunch
of glass in your lane. Without a second thought you quickly put your turn
signal on and change lanes as to avoid the glass up ahead. Your intuition would
tell you that staying in your lane and driving on the glass could be
potentially dangerous, so you decided to change lanes and avoid the danger.
During this moment you do not stop to assess the situation or calculate the
probability of the glass popping your tires. You use a heuristic move to make
the decision quickly.
There are three types of heuristics:
availability, representativeness, and base-rate heuristic. The availability
heuristic “is a mental shortcut that helps us make a decision based on how easy
it is to bring something to mind.” Representativeness heuristic “is a mental
shortcut that helps us make a decision by comparing information to our mental
prototypes.” Finally, base-rate heuristic is “a mental shortcut that helps us
make a decision based on probability.”
Risk perception for the body of population shows
some general trends. Such as, perceiving a higher threat of risk towards human
made risks versus natural risks. An example of this would be some
industrialized chemicals, against a snowstorm even though the effects of the
storm could cause more risk to human health because of exposure. Another common trend is that people have a
diluted risk perception when it comes to imposed risks versus voluntary risks.
When a risk is imposed it makes the person feel trapped which escalates the
perception of the risk.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.