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Week 47/2009: What does risk feel like?

We do not assess risks with our reason alone. Our temperaments determine to a large extent how we perceive the risks we come across. A momentary attitude also shapes how we experience risks.

Will I have a heart attack because I eat fatty foods? Will I get fired? Will my flight be hijacked by terrorists? Life is full of dangers. According to psychology researcher Sointu Leikas, the approaches people take to risks vary in many ways. One trait in particular, neuroticism or a negative temperament, makes an individual have a strong fear of risks.

“Some people very easily experience negative feelings when encountering negative things. They also react very strongly in those types of situations,” Leikas says, describing a neurotic personality.

Leikas has written extensively on the link between neuroticism and risk perception. In her unpublished research, she has also tested the characteristics of other personality types and their link to risk assessment. “None of the other traits were as clearly and strongly linked with high risk appraisal as neuroticism,” says Leikas, who works in the Department of Psychology at the University of Helsinki.
 
Personality traits are partly congenital, partly formed during early childhood. Therefore they are deeply rooted in a person’s psyche. Also, a situation-specific motivation affects the risk appraisal. “When we are frightened or when we have reason to be cautious, we are in a state of avoidance.  Our motivational state tells us to avoid things that are negative. In this situation we also assess risks as being higher, regardless of our temperament.

Reasoning is not, all in all, the only tool we use when assessing the risks related to, for example, nuclear energy, gene-engineering or heart attacks.”

That is why education can affect people’s choices only partially. “Educational campaigns are terribly inefficient when the goal is to make people understand that they have certain health risks. When it becomes personal, people assess the risks too low. Similarly, if people are afraid of something, it is difficult to convince them that it isn’t dangerous.”

Text: Mikko Puttonen
Picture: Wikipedia
Translation: AAC Noodi

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