People overreact to rare, vivid, uncontrollable dangers and underreact to frequent chronic ones.
Gigerenzer analysed the three months after 11 September 2001 and argued that avoidance of flying contributed to excess road deaths. Later reanalyses found excess fatalities but questioned the simple flight-to-driving explanation.
In practice
- A firm installs airport-style security after one incident and leaves the loading bay unlocked, where the losses actually occur.
- A parent worries about abduction and does not fit a stair gate.
- Possible explanations
- The explanation is that vivid, uncontrollable and catastrophic risks are weighted more heavily than frequent ones, so people substitute a familiar risk for a feared one without comparing rates.
- In its favour
- Substitution after a dramatic event is documented, including the rise in American road travel after September 2001, and the pattern fits research on risk perception.
- Against it
- Later reanalyses found the excess road deaths but questioned the simple flight-to-driving explanation, and the effect on behaviour fades within months, which the general claim does not predict.
- Standing
- Later reanalyses found excess road fatalities but questioned the simple flight-to-driving explanation.
- Subject
- Risk & Reliability
- Essay
- How accidents actually happen