Ten ways we get the odds wrong

[thewayne]

A summary of why we do not always properly perceive risk.

http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/index.php?term=pto-20071228-000005&print=1

Comments

[quasar273.livejournal.com]

I've seen this before. It's a reasonable short summation of some of the complexities of decision making. But it still oversimplifies. 1.4 million people changed travel plans after 9/11 -- but not simply because they were afraid of plane crashes. A lot of those people (including me) changed plans because it had suddenly become massively more inconvenient and costly and unpleasant to fly. And that, in turn, was caused by some societal misperception of risk. So sometimes it doesn't matter if the individual's perception of a risk is more or less accurate, if enough other people are misestimating it.

[thewayne.livejournal.com]

Absolutely agreed. When it takes six hours for us to fly to Phoenix for what would be a 7-8 hour drive, you just have to wonder.