Preference for eliminating small risks completely over substantially reducing larger risks.
Baron's finding: people prefer eliminating a small risk entirely to making a larger cut in a bigger risk. It is why cleanup programmes target the last percent of contamination at disproportionate cost.
In practice
- A council spends £2m removing every last trace of a chemical from one site and leaves unchanged the junction where three cyclists were hurt.
- A cleanup programme targeting the last one per cent of contamination at disproportionate cost is choosing the feeling of completion over the reduction in harm.
- Further reading
- Wikipedia
- Subject
- Psychology & Behavior
- Essay
- A century and a half of measuring the mind