Harm caused by inaction is judged less culpable than equivalent harm caused by acting.
Ritov and Baron's studies on vaccination: parents rejected a vaccine with a small fatality risk over a disease with a larger one, because the vaccine death would be caused by their action.
In practice
- A regulator who declines to approve a treatment is not blamed for the deaths that follow, and would be blamed for the deaths from approving it.
- A manager who lets a project drift is judged less harshly than one who cancels it, and the drift costs more.
- Further reading
- Wikipedia
- Subject
- Decision-making & Reasoning
- Essay
- The catalogue of predictable errors